


The Harsh Light of Day

by GreenasCole



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Beacon Hills is a Beacon, Competition, Dating, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Fluff and Humor, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Multi, POV Derek, POV Jordan Parrish, POV Stiles, Post-Season/Series 04, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Romance, Secrets, Shameless Buffy References, Slow Build, So Much Headcannon, Territory Disputes, This Fic Is My Brain Exoricism, Vampire Stiles Stilinski, Vampires, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-09 23:56:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 58,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3269039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenasCole/pseuds/GreenasCole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Stiles has an almost completely mundane near death experience, the pack decides that he needs to put a little more effort into being less likely to die horribly.  </p><p>Somehow they accidentally get him turned into a vampire.</p><p>While he struggles to adjust to his new life (and not eat people), long kept family secrets come pouring out of the woodwork, and the pack is forced to fight harder than ever just to survive as enemies old and new take the failure to protect its infamous human as a sign that Beacon Hills, and all their lives, are ripe for the taking.</p><p>And because all of that isn't enough, Stiles has to keep Derek and Jordan from killing each other when they both decide they want to date him.</p><p>Welcome to the Hellmouth, Beacon Hills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

**Author's Note:**

> As I noted in the tags a big part of my reason for writing this fic is to cure my writer's block (the too much in the head kind) and revive my poor WIP's that I pulled out of frustration and chardonnay. To that end I've actually outlined this piece in advance (gasp!) and woven about 90% of all my headcannon into one giant tapestry of weird. The outline isn't *quite* finished yet, because this fic is a monster (seriously act 4 of 5 ends with chapter 57, but they're short chapters). This is also my NaNoWriMo Redemption Challenge after Stuff Happened last November that derailed my writing for months, so updates should come pretty quick, maybe even daily.
> 
> Please feel free to comment, but I probably won't read them until the fic is done. I'll be tagging as I go.
> 
> I do not own Teen Wolf.
> 
> There, I think I've got myself covered disclaimer-wise. If you're still with me, I hope you have as much fun reading this as I has cackling over the outline and rubbing my hands together in evil anticipation. Now, here's the first three chapters in one go, so you can get a glimpse of what's going on in our three heroes' heads before all hell breaks loose in Beacon Hills. (Speaking of loose things, the speed at which I'm cranking this out means the chapters will be loosely edited, so sorry in advance for the grammatical surrealism ;) ).
> 
> Enjoy!

Stiles is gravely disappointed in his friends and family. While he recognizes their right to plot and scheme on his behalf, appreciates the sentiment even; the fact that they think they can pull off doing do behind his back while simultaneously smothering him with overprotectiveness is a little insulting to his skills as a detective. He can’t blame them, really, not after the last two months. First Danny, whose big family reunion in Hawaii let him neatly miss the whole Dead Pool brouhaha, gets into a deadly car accident that leaves him probably paralyzed and fighting for life. Scott gladly gives him the Bite, this time with full parental consent (the Mahealanis turn out to be old friends of the Hales, fully in the know, and readily agree, which is a refreshing twist for the pack). Then _Stiles_ winds up in the hospital on the next full moon for an equally mundane reason. They’d gathered in Lydia’s rowan wood boathouse, not wanting to risk am incident that would give the Calaveras reason to stop by for another visit, and for a while everything went fine. Danny, the most chill werewolf ever, spent most of the night mournfully pawing at his fluffy wolf sideburns and protruding brow ridge, right up until Stiles made a crack about manscaping. In response to the Beta’s furious snarl, Malia jumped in between them, flinging out a protective arm that sent Stiles flying tail over teakettle into the water. One lungful of frigid lake water later he’s laid up for the better part of a month with a case of pneumonia so bad it needed IV antibiotics to clear up, and _watching_ the lacrosse team take their second State Championship in a row via webcast. Thus operation Protect The Squishy Human was born, an Stiles is seriously considering asking for a three foot bubble of personal space for his birthday.

The Pack clearly has something else in mind.

“Where now?” he asks side-eyeing Malia in the passenger seat.

“Turn right on fifth,” she replies, scowling at the smartphone in her hand like it’s personally offended her.

They’re working on it. “So what’s the big surprise?” he asks cautiously.

“I asked Dr. Deaton if he would teach you his druid mojo,” Malia answers readily, never one for subterfuge.

Stiles perks up at that (and suppresses a laugh at “druid mojo”). “Really?”

“He said no.”

“Oh.” Disappointing, but hardly unexpected. Stiles doubts he could pull off vague and self-important well enough to be an emissary in any case.

Malia flashes him a smug grin. “So I got him to give me a list of books you can use to teach yourself.”

Stiles hums noncommittally. It’s not that he isn’t thrilled at the idea of pouring over a pile of real magical tomes, research is his thing after all, but the last time he got his hands on real power (involuntarily, but still) people were lining up to kill him over it. Besides, he’s already proven on multiple occasions just how much damage he can cause with a chemistry set and a bag of household tools, and is more than a little leery of handing himself an even better weapon given how frequently reasons to use it will doubtless be coming down the pike. “Cool.”

“Don’t sound so happy,” Malia grumbles. “Turn here.”

Stiles bites back a sigh and follows her directions. Of all the current frustrations plaguing him his relationship with Malia is hands down the hardest to wrap his head around. Even though she’s long since forgiven him for the Secret Evil Parent Debacle, they’ve somehow drifted into an incredibly confusing iteration of the Friend Zone, in that he is still her anchor, they share a bed more often than not, and do lots of affectionate kissing (but definitely _not_ making out). He never thought he could actually _regret_ losing his virginity (seriously, they’re coming to revoke his Guy Card any day now), but after months of having wild weresex three or four times a day he’s starting to look back fondly on the days he didn’t know what he was missing. As if the situation isn’t weird enough already, his dad has basically adopted her as the daughter he never had and is fixing up the spare bedroom for her during his off hours (at least the writing on the wall is clear to _someone_ ), which threatens to push them clear through the Friend zone and into sibling territory, something Stiles has no idea how to process whatsoever. With the state of his love life struggling with the temptation of Power might actually be a welcome distraction. It sure as hell will be _simpler_. “Sorry,” he apologizes sincerely. “Bring on the hocus pocus.”

Torchbearer Books looks like a Hollywood set piece of an occult bookstore, nestled in the back of a mostly deserted group of shops downtown. The building itself is a little on the rundown side, but the sign over the door is freshly painted, the exterior brightened by a small forest of potted flowering plants and wrought iron tables covered with crisp white umbrellas. A pair of tiki torches guard the front door, perfuming the air with a subtle spicy scent. It’s all very welcoming and pleasant, but it never hurts to be careful, not in this town. “Are your spider senses tingling?” he asks Malia.

“I sense books. A lot of them,” she deadpans.

Stiles shrugs. “All right then.” Malia is probably the most in tune with her extra perceptions out of all of them, and an even bigger supporter of _Charge!_ as a default reaction to danger than Derek, so if nothing about the shop is making her hackles rise it’s a fair bet there’s nothing nefarious going on in the stacks.

The interior is exactly what one would expect. Floor to ceiling shelves fill the main room leaving only narrow aisles between them. Many of the books are clearly new, glossy covers glinting in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the gauzy fabric draping large bay windows, but the vast majority are used, sporting enough evidence of time and wear to suggest that the original owners had found their contents worth perusing multiple times. Stiles forgets his trepidations instantly, overwhelmed with an almost giddy urge to dive in and devour. “It’s like Christmas,” he moans lustily.

“You’re weird,” Malia observes for the thousandth time, albeit much more fondly than when they’d first met. “Nuh huh,” she huffs grabbing Stiles’s arm when his feet start carrying him of their own accord towards a shelf overloaded with particularly ancient-looking leather-bound volumes. “We have to be at Lydia’s in an hour.”

He gives the books a last wistful glance. “Fine,” he sighs. “Gimme the list.” It doesn’t help much. If there’s an organizing scheme to how the shop is set up, Stiles can’t find it, or any of the texts Deaton recommended. He does manage to nearly brain half a dozen of the surprisingly large number of other customers. Most of them are stereotypical Goth, students from the CC by their age, but there’s a fair contingent of perfectly ordinary people from teenagers to blue-haired grandmothers that leaves him wondering what percentage of people in Beacon Hills really know about the supernatural.

After twenty minutes of fruitless searching they’re rescued by a willowy, fair-skinned slip of a girl with bright green eyes and long rust red hair done up in Princess Leia cinnamon buns. “You look lost.”

Stiles blinks at the blinding smile she’s giving him. On second glance he puts her age somewhere in the late twenties, though it’s hard to be sure with her diminutive stature and excessive level of perkiness. “Um…yeah. We’re looking for some books?” _Smooth_.

The girl, Helen according to her nametag, throws back her head and lets out a peal of warm, full-bodied laughter. “Well I guess you’re not lost after all. Are you looking for something specific?”

Malia snatches the list out Stiles’s hand and shoves it at her. “Here,” she says with a hint of a growl (Stiles thinks he hears jealousy in it and tries not to get hopes up too much).

Helen scans the titles on the titles on the page, biting her full lower lip thoughtfully. “Let me see if we have any of these in stock,” she says, bouncing away merrily towards the register.

“She’s…helpful,” Stiles says lamely. “Human?”

“Yes,” Malia replies flatly.

Stiles’s stupid hopes get away from him. Fortunately Helen dances back over to them before he can shove his foot down his own throat and tank his friendship with his quasi-ex. “Thank god for computers, right?” she gushes. “The new owner brought all these amazing books with them and then just stuck them on the shelves wherever. Here.” She hefts a ridiculously oversized tome into Stiles’ arms with a grunt of effort. “We don’t have any of the books on your list, but I found this one in the back the other day and I think it’s more or less what you’re after. Is Latin okay?”

Malia snorts derisively. “Wow. She’s like your long lost twin sister.” It pains Stiles that the joke is purely about the hyperactive chatter, not the hairstyle (it’s _Star Wars_ for fucks sake, how is that he attracts so many people that have never seen _the_ seminal work of modern science fiction). “How much?”

“Well, with the family discount it’s two hundred,” Helen says with a cheeky wink in Stiles’s direction.

He blushes pink, then red at the judgmental glare Malia hits him with. “Sold,” she says forking over a neat stack of twenties (where did that come from?)

“Super! Just let me get a receipt.” Helen beams at them so brightly even Malia starts to smile back out of pure reflex. “And my number.” Back to scowl. “Just in case you need any customer service.” Upgrade to murderous scowl.

“We’re good, thanks.”

Stiles’s fumbling protest turns into a yelp when she manhandles him out the door and back to the Jeep without another word. It’s been _months_ since a pretty girl flirted with him, damn it, and Helen seemed like a handful in the best way. Then again, he did meet her in a occult bookshop. Ms. Blake had appeared to be a nice, normal young woman too, and the whole “new owner” bit makes Stiles understandably wary. He makes a mental note to have his dad do a background check. “Thanks for the book.”

“Happy Birthday, Stiles.”

 

***

 

“Are you sure you’re not going to summon a plague of locusts?” Scott asks nervously. “I didn’t bring any bug spray.”

Stiles closes the spellbook with an irritated huff and gives the Alpha a flat look. “Your confidence in me is touching. Seriously, I’m just melting over here.”

“I’ll be amazed if he can conjure up a fruit fly,” Derek offers.

“I have wolfsbane, you know,” Stiles mutters acidly, consoling himself with the fond memory of dislocating the Sour Wolf’s shoulder. “Besides, it’s just a lunar blessing. Happy moon vibes and all of that.”

Liam and Danny share a dubious look and take a long step backwards.

Why is this his pack? “You all suck.”

“Can I help?” Mason asks not-looking at Danny so hard he might as well be wearing a sign that says _Notice Me!_

Stiles claps on the shoulder. “Sure thing. It’s a call and response thing anyway.” He hands him the notes Lydia wrote for the Latin impaired. “See? It’s really straightforward. A couple candles, a little chanting, and presto, happy mellow werewolves.” And hopefully no severe respiratory infections.

“Pizza!” Malia announces carrying a towering stack of boxes into the room balanced on one hand, a half-eaten slice of meat lovers already in the other.

“Not over the carpet,” Lydia hisses, pained.

The pack falls on the food with the gusto of, well, a bunch of wolves. Not that Stiles has any room to talk; he puts away almost an entire pie all by himself (his dad has more than once threatened to sell him to the highest bidder if he changes his mind about taking the Bite, citing certain bankruptcy from having to feed a wereStiles even after Peter’s generous donation to the pack’s finances). Scott on the other hand barely eats, staring gloomily into space instead. Ever since La Iglesia things have been going well with Kira (very, very well based on all the nose wrinkling the rest of the pack is doing whenever the two of show up together after being conspicuously absent for a few hours) and being away from her on the full moon while his instincts are screaming at him to find a nice cozy den somewhere and shack up with her can’t be easy. Stiles sympathizes with his best friend, but even if Kira wasn’t off with Noshiko communing with kitsune within or whatever, they’d found out the hard way that her presence in the increasingly crowded boathouse was just too distracting for the Alpha, who had two very new Betas that needed his support and attention.

“Wanna see something cool?” Stiles asks plopping down next to him on the couch. Part of the reason he’s so set on trying out his shiny new toy so soon is to take some of the weight of the world off Scott’s shoulders, and if it instills sufficient confidence to put an end to the What Am I Going To o When Stiles Inevitably Buys The Farm looks he keeps getting so much the better.

“Sure,” Scott answers listlessly.

Stiles nods and pulls a small vial of mountain ash out of his pocket. He pours three quarters of a small circle on the coffee table, pretends he can’t feel Lydia’s eyes boring into his skull, and covers it with hands, picturing the circle as complete and believing it so. “Ta da!” he sings, pulling his hands away to show the solid ring.

Scott makes an impressed sound and pokes at the circle, yanking his hand back with a surprised yip when it zaps his fingers on contact. “Dude! _Oww_.”

Derek heaves a put upon sigh. “Really, Scott?”

“What? I wanted to see if it worked.”

“Wanna check and see if that fork in the toaster thing works too?” Stiles asks devilishly.

Mason sidles over and waves a hand over the circle cautiously. “Magic force field dust? Why doesn’t it work on me?”

“Mountain ash, my young padawan,” Stiles replies smugly. “It repels supernatural creatures. Some of them, anyway,” he amends looking at Lydia. Actually, this particular trick has lost some of its shine as a protective charm now that he knows both banshees and whatever the hell Deputy Parrish is aren’t bothered by it in slightest (Stiles has a theory about the latter of the two, but so far no way to test it unfortunately).

“Padawan?” Liams repeats.

Stiles throws up his hands in defeat. “That’s _it_! I’m mountain ashing all of your culturally deprived werecritter asses onto the couch and marathoning all six episodes for you so help me god!”

“That’s going to have to wait, Darth Dháibher,” Derek drawls jerking his chin at Danny and Liam whose eyes are already shining gold with the moonrise.

“Okay, one: why am I a Sith Lord? And two: how do you know my real name?” Stiles demands sharply.

“How do you know how to _pronounce_ his real name?” Scott, who gave it one look when they were kids, gave up before trying, and promptly bestowed the moniker “Stiles” on him, asks in an awed voice.

“Save the language lesson for later,” Malia lisps around her fangs.

“Right, _shit_ ,” Stiles says scooping up the mountain ash. “Boathouse time.”

While the ‘wolves get themselves situated with piles of cushions, blankets, and assorted books and electronic gizmos (Stiles mocking Derek’s use of the word “evolving” has led to the surprising revelation that old school handheld games like Pokémon and Zelda sooth the savage wolf almost as effectively as a shot of yellow wolfsbane, presumably because it reminds them of when they were puppies _awwww_ ), he enlists Mason’s help in carrying out a small end table to serve as an altar, who drops it on his foot when Derek strips naked, casual as you please, and shifts into wolf form.

“ _Whoa_.”

Danny lets out a lusty rumble in agreement, expression turning horrified when it hits him he’s leering at a _wolf_.

“Yeah, he does that,” Stiles snickers. Hell, if he looked like Derek he’d show it off too (okay, so probably not, but it’s not like he’s ever going to actually find out). It only takes a couple of minutes to set up for the relatively simple ritual and he tries not to take it too personally that the pack has set up their little wolf nests as far from him as possible, all save Derek who trots over and takes a seat right next to the altar as if to say _I want a front row seat for your imminent fuck up_. Ass. “Who’s a good wolfboy? You are. You are,” Stiles croons scratching him roughly behind the ears, ignoring the throaty snarl that gets him (two hundred pounds of wolf makes one hell of an intimidating noise, but he’s seen and been worse). “Ah ah! Be good or no snausages for you.” He pulls his hand back a hair ahead of the snap of Derek’s jaws.

“Now looks like a good time for those “happy moon vibes” of yours,” Lydia says sweetly from the other side of the door.

“Chicken,” Stiles taunts. He turns to Mason. “Ready?”

The freshmen nods a little too vigorously to believe him. “Ring the bell, right?”

“Go for it.” Stiles opens the book as three chimes ring out from the little silver instrument he found in a pawn shop. He reads the first line, letting the setting pull him into the mood. Surrounded by actual werewolves, with the light of the full moon shining down on the pages before him, it’s not all that hard to summon up the necessary imagination, the belief that magic is not only real but at his fingertips.

Mason stammer out the response, mangling the first couple of words but quickly falling into sync with him.

“Your pronunciation is atrocious,” Lydia calls.

Stiles ignores her, focusing on the words, the rhythm of them as well as the meaning. It doesn’t rhyme, precisely, but the syllables flow out with a musical air that makes them sound like poetry, a song to Hecate, goddess of the moon and magic, a prayer for peace and purification. He’s a little disappointed when they reach the end, having expected to feel or sense _something_ supernatural. There never was with mountain ash, but he thought actually incanting a spell, ritual, whatever would come with some kind of feedback, even just a tingle. “Bummer,” he grumbles morosely.

“Um, Stiles?” Lydia squeaks. Lydia. _Squeaks_.

He and Mason raise their heads from the book to see the banshee’s wide eyes, and baleful primary-colored glaring of three wolves and one coyote, the impact of which is only marginally softened by the ridiculous sight of them tangled up in their human clothes. A panting sound pulls Stiles’s attention to the side where he sees Derek’s tongue lolling out of his mouth, wolf-laughing at him, the bastard. “Shut up, Fido.”

“Is there a counterspell?” Mason gulps.

“Maybe? I don’t know,” Stiles admits. “Good thing I wore my board shorts.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Stiles eyes the advancing wolves, willing himself not to chuckle at the cacophony of warped canine noises he’s sure are swear words struggling to snarl their way out of inhuman vocal chords, along with the occasional yelp when a paw gets caught on a piece of clothing. “No such luck. Welcome to the pack, dude.” He takes a deep breath, pinches his nose shut, and hops into the lake. Mason follows a beat behind.

 

Unsurprisingly it’s Lydia that figures out how to change them back, letting loose with her banshee wail and forcing their shift via an agonizing blast of sound. By the time the moon sets they’re all sitting around laughing about it and ribbing Stiles about his epic magic fail while he shivers in a fluffy towel and mutters imprecations under his breath. Not quite according to plan, but all things considered, not a bad way to spend a Friday night either.


	2. Tough Love

Derek is happy to have a pack again, happy to do his part in strengthening it, nurturing it, and bringing it together. He was born a werewolf, grew up with all the blessings and headaches that come with pack. His new one, however, comes with novel kind of pain, not in his head, but in his _ass_. Dháirbher. Stiles’s real name is comically appropriate, enough to make Derek wonder if the faculty for magic the obnoxious menace displays on occasion indicates a familial talent, specifically a line of seers. Some ancestor certainly appears to have possessed the power to foretell and select a name that doubles as thoughtful warning label, and Stiles himself has uncanny ability for diving the quickest path to unsuspectings’ last nerves. Dháirbher, the Norse-Gael name for the wolverine, a huge, fluffy, demonic ferret with a glutinous taste for mayhem, just enough cleverness to unleash it, and not enough sense to know when to back down from a fight; Stiles, in a nutshell. But as much as Derek would like to ship him off to a zoo or something, the facts are the Giant Death Weasel Boy is his Alpha’s best friend and second, and more importantly, that all of their chances for survival seem to go up drastically when the kid is happily invested in the pack’s wellbeing. Jennifer’s warning about the overlooked still haunts him, as do all the deaths that occurred because none of them saw what was coming, all too wrapped up in their images of Stiles the childhood friend, Stiles the hyperactive spazz, Stiles the defenseless human. Not a one of them even seriously considered the possibility that Stiles was one of the rare handful of people with the kind of fortitude and latent ability that would allow something as ancient and alien as the nogitsune to wield the full scope of its powers through him. In light of this Derek is more than a little uncertain about encouraging him to explore that potential, but at the same time, transforming _annoyance_ into _asset_ would benefit the pack on multiple levels, provided they’re able to keep Darth Death Weasel from merrily skipping over to the Dark Side. Well, it sure as hell won’t be _boring_ in any case.

And on the plus side, he gets to smack him around a little.

Stiles crashes his way into the loft the day after the full moon with all the usual lack of poise and apparent ignorance of the concept of knocking. “Sup Sour Wolf?” he asks, tossing an overnight bag onto the couch.

Derek loathes the nickname, but the one he made up in return is better, which helps. “Ready for your birthday present?” he asks stripping off his Henley and tossing it aside (if he flexes a little more than necessary while doing so it’s worth it to see the riot of shocked facial expressions cascade their way across the teen’s face).

Stiles’ eyes look ready to pop clean out of his spiky little head. “ _Oh my god_ ,” he chokes out. “You know, this kind of ironic, actually, because it was in this very loft that a girl suggested I broaden my sexual horizons. You’re hot and all, I guess, but I wouldn’t have pegged you for the type to go after Almost-Barely Legal Boyz.” His whole body gets into the horror that spasms through him in the wake of this burst of tactlessness. “Dude I am _so_ sorry; I didn’t mean to…you’re not…it isn’t like…not _Kate_ I…er… oh _fuckmonkeys_.”

Derek lets him get it out of his system, thoroughly enjoying the show, particularly that little gem at the end he can add to running list of ridiculous Stiles-vocabulary. While his catastrophic past relationships are never going to be his favorite topic of discussion, he decides to set the record straight before the sound of eggshells being trod underfoot drives him up the wall. “She didn’t nab me at a playground, Stiles. I was sixteen, a werewolf, and angry. She was beautiful, older, and dangerous; yes, I knew who she was the whole time. Close your mouth before swallow a fly.” Derek can enjoy an accidental/deliberate tongue-slip now again too. He picks Stiles’s present up off the table and tosses it to him. “Here.”

Stiles fumbles the box, drops it, and stares stupidly as the baseball bat inside falls out and rolls away. “What the..?”

“It’s called a baseball bat,” Derek says mildly.

That gets him a scowl. Better. “I know that,” Stiles snaps. “Why are _you_ giving _me_ a baseball bat?”

“Because I don’t want to have to deal with Scott’s moping after you get your stupid ass killed.”

Stiles snorts and rolls his eyes. “I get it. This is part two of the Make Stiles Useful Initiative, huh?”

Catchy title. “Just pick up the bat and try to kill me.”

“ _With_ the bat?”

“Yes, Stiles, _with_ the bat.”

“Damn, _so_ close.”

Derek watches closely as Stiles picks up the bat, curious to see if the kid will react in any way to it. The length of seasoned oak, formerly a leg on his parents’ dining room table, came from the Nemeton after all.

Nothing in particular happens, which is something of a relief.

“Okay, so, here I come, I guess,” Stiles mutters, advancing on him.

Derek catches the first half-hearted swing with his hand, stopping it cold. He jerks the bat out of the kid’s hands and shoves him roughly with the butt. “Too slow. A club is hard weapon and needs a hard target.”

“Dude, _everything_ about you is hard,” Stiles mutters, snatching back the bat.

It’s probably meant to be a commentary on his personality, but Derek elects to take it as a compliment on his physique, changes his mind and converts it back to insult at the uncomfortable idea of Stiles looking at him like _that_. “Target long bones without much padding. Shins. Collarbones. Joints are better; they have to be put back into place before they can heal, which gives you time to run away.” Not that Stiles has any idea how to _do_ that.

“Go for the crunchy bits. Got it.”

This time Derek simply slips aside the lazy overhead swing. The reprimand dies on his lips when Stiles abruptly drops his weight down and to the side, whipping the bat laterally with all his momentum behind it.

Derek’s never had a broken kneecap before. Experiencing new things is all well and good, but this one he could have done without. “Better,” he grunts, keeping his weight on his good leg while the bone knits back together. “But where’s the follow through? Come on, you’ve wanted to do this since they day we met.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, back then kicking your ass was a Big Deal, but by the time I actually got there it was kind of like meh, who hasn’t?”

“Touché. Again.”

It takes some time for Stiles to get over the fact he’s systematically inflicting pain and injury on another person, but soon enough they find a rhythm, and before long Derek is actually putting some effort into defending himself (he suspects Kira has been practicing more than just lacrosse with Stiles, that or years of make believe lightsaber fighting has improbably paid off). It’s…fun, almost, but Stiles is human, and still recovering from a serious lung infection, so it doesn’t last.

“I’m…dying…”

Derek ignores the dramatics in favor of examining the pinkie finger on his left hand, which is currently sticking out slightly and moving in uncoordinated jerks instead of smoothly. He grasps in his other hand and breaks it with a sharp twist so it can heal properly.

“Dude! Why!?” Stiles groans theatrically, sweat-drenched face turning green.

“Seriously? _That’s_ what makes you squeamish? You’re the one who broke it in the first place.”

“Yeah but… _not the same_!”

Derek’s annoyance turns into concern when the flailing protestations turn Stiles’s panting gasps into actual barking coughs. “Go take a shower. The steam will help.” He thinks, vaguely remembering a cousin of his doing something similar once or twice during allergy season. Not the same, but close enough, probably. “You stink anyway,” he adds.

Sure enough, Stiles’s heart rate and breathing steady a little in response to the dig. “So that’s why I was told o bring a change of clothes. And here I was thinking you were being all considerate and saving me from the Walk of Shame,” he says sweetly, flouncing over to his bag and dragging it with him into the bathroom.

While Stiles’s showers (and sings, because human or no, the boy is _pure evil_ ) Derek works on the other part of his present in the loft’s tiny kitchen. It’s not the beef and mushroom stew itself, but the license to mock him for actually being able to _cook_.

Stiles doesn’t disappoint. “Well lookie at you, Werewolf Betty Crocker. Is it poisoned?” he asks sniffing at the proffered bowl dubiously.

Derek shrugs. “I guess you’ll find out.”

The echoing snarl coming from Stiles’s midsection decides him, and five minutes later Derek is holding an empty crock pot revising his opinion on the kid’s species. Evidently Stiles is a not human, but a bottomless pit masquerading around as a teenager. “That was amazing,” Stiles groans contentedly. “Were those shiitake?”

“And morel and porcini.”

“ _Dude_ , those are _expensive_ ,” Stiles sputters. “Is this like, a thing? Instead of a truffle pig you’re a truffle wolf?”

It is, actually. The rich, complex flavors and aromas of most mushrooms, especially the pricier varieties, make them a common vice for those with enhanced sense, particularly werewolves, but Derek will admit that to _Stiles_ about half an hour after _never_. “Just say thank you, Stiles.”

“Thank you, Stiles.” Brat. “Actually, that ties in perfectly with an Idea I’ve been working on.” Stiles fishes his massive book of magic out of his bag and drops on the coffee table with a hollow boom that echoes through the rafters (it turns out sweat does nothing for the scent of old mildewed paper and leather long past its prime).

“You found a spell to conjure yourself some manners?” Derek asks pointedly.

Stiles snorts. “Not exactly.” A tupperware container full of dirt, a bottle of water, and an apple join the tome on the coffee table. “Bleed into this a bunch for me would ya? I’ll eat the apple.”

Derek edges away from the box of dirt. “How about we switch.”

“You’ll heal,” Stiles says dismissively. “This doesn’t actually need blood, but I figure some go juice from a supernatural creature is safer than trying to power this myself.”

And that’s exactly the kind of think-before-acting behavior the pack is so determined to encourage (Derek probably should have clarified if there was a Magical Experimentation Escape Clause in advance). Besides, who turns down dinner and a show? He draws a claw across his palm, letting the blood spill into the container of soil.

Stiles finishes mauling the apple and spits a seed into the mix, topping it off with water. “Wow, that’s seriously gross. Anyway…” he opens the book to a page marked with clipping from Better Homes and Gardens.

“You’re trying a growing spell?” Derek asks. Suddenly the ingredients make sense. Even with magic you can’t break the laws of physics, just displace them, _temporarily_. The ability to call plants from of the earth out of season is a highly prized skill for a werewolf pack, and good, non-apocalyptic way for Stiles to start developing his abilities. Some of that same magic still lingers in the antidote garden his family once maintained, even years after the fire, enough to provide the woflsbane for Laura and Peter’s burials and to heal Derek’s ill-fated pack after the disaster at the rave (if only the Nordic Blue had persisted along with the common Napellus, it would have the prevented “The Bone Saw Debacle”, something he doubts he’ll _ever_ live down).

“Poison Ivy was my favorite DC villain when I was kid,” Stiles declares brightly. “Now hush, I need to concentrate. Unless you want your tombstone to read: Here Lies Derek Hale, Devoured By Vengeful Houseplant.” He closes reads over the marked page one last time and closes his eyes, lips moving silently.

Derek watches in fascination as the mixture begins to bubble. After a few minutes a tiny leaf appears, then a bud.

And then Stiles’s heartbeat, which had actually been slow and regular for once, stutters in his chest.

“Enough,” Derek snaps, cuffing him on the back of the head.

“Ow, why?” Stiles yelps, swaying a little. “Huh, guess I kind of got into it a little. Did it work?”

They lean in to examine the minute seedling more closely. Almost immediately it starts to droop sadly. “It…worked,” Derek assures him.

“Yeah, like the Challenger’s Re-entry shielding,” Stiles pouts.

Derek frowns at the sort-of-successful spell. “It’s a plant.”

“Really!?” Stiles gasps mockingly.

“Stiles, it’s _dark_ in here.”

The would-be witch gapes for a moment before burying his face in his hands, muttering a string of self-deprecations.

Derek catches a few choice words like “useless” and idiot, and actually feels a little bad for the kid (clearly some dark mind-altering magic took place after all). “I’ll put it under a lamp.” He carries the sloshing bowl of goop into the storage room down the hall. After the fight with Oni he’d replaced the ancient, flickering incandescent light with only thing he had: a blinding halogen bulb he dug out of one of the boxes. It isn’t quite as good as natural sunlight, but it’ll do, at least until morning. That done he returns to loft to find Stiles drooling onto the armrest of the couch, sleeping off the combined physical and magical exertion.

Derek has finally reached a place where Sheriff Stilinski actually seems to like him, or at the very least, listens to him, and he doesn’t want to screw that up by showing up on the man’s doorstep with an unconscious Stiles over his shoulder.

So he calls Scott.

And regrets when the Alpha shows up with every other teenager in the pack. “Hey, man. We were all going to do a movie marathon with Stiles today, since tomorrow’s a school night, so I figured we’d just do it here.”

It’s not so much that they didn’t invite him to go (he wouldn’t have, _probably_ ) but commandeering his loft on top of that is a little much. “Whatever,” he mutters, stepping out of the doorway to let the pack inside.

“We brought popcorn!” Kira says waving a bottle of kernels at him.

“Well that makes it all better,” he mutters.

“Buck up,” Lydia coos patting him on the cheek as she passes.

Derek wonders if she can hear him plotting her death.

They watch Star Wars, the original trilogy, because if they start with Episode One the marathon will probably end before it begins.

“I don’t get what the big deal is,” Liam complains.

Danny makes a thoughtful sound. “I don’t feel so bad about my sideburns now,” he allows while Chewbacca roars on screen.

“M’cold,” Stiles whines in his sleep. “Somebody wolf out and lie on my feet.”

Everyone turns to look at Derek.

“Not happening.”

He does lean back a little, his spot on the floor in front of the couch close enough for some of his body heat to reach him.

 

***

 

It’s a mark of just how far he’s come that Derek is comfortable enough with his pack around him to fall asleep without meaning to halfway through the Empire’s assault on Hoth. By contrast, the fact that what wakes him early the next morning is a series of loud crunches proves just how far this clutch of teenage headcases has yet to go if they want to actually survive long enough to graduate high school.

Because they’re eating apples.

“What are you doing?” Derek asks, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. He has a pretty good guess where their delicious fruit breakfast came from.

“Dude!” Scott crows. “These taste _amazing_!” he gushes, holding up half of a gleaming blood red apple.

The pack nods along enthusiastically, all save Lydia and Stiles who are standing off to the side, the former watching them a small, vicious smirk and the latter vibrating in place with choked-off laughter.

“You think so?” Derek asks mildly.

“Definitely,” Mason replies, munching into a fresh one with relish. “They’re really sweet and sour at the same time.”

“The taste like home,” Malia adds.

This has gone on long enough. “And you got them where?”

“From the apple tree in the storage room,” Liam answers. “You know most people who hang out in abandoned buildings just grow pot, but these are way better.”

Stiles is now leaning on Lydia for support, which pushes the banshee over the edge. “That’s because Stiles grew them magically out of Derek blood,” she says sweetly.

Derek gets his phone of out his pocket just in time to preserve the pack’s mingled looks of horror, betrayal, and nausea for all time (maybe he’ll give Stiles a framed copy for Christmas, assuming the kid survives the next thirty seconds that is).

“I can’t believe you let me _eat Derek_ ,” Scott moans clutching his midsection.

“I could stand to have another bite,” Danny says coyly. (Ethan _really_ needs to come back to Beacon Hills.)

“Are we going to fall into an enchanted sleep for a thousand years?” Kira asks nervously.

“Nope,” Stiles chuckles. “But you may feel an overwhelming urge to growl and shove people into walls for a few days.”

“You know what?” Liam snarls, “I think it’s coming on already.”

“What’s the big deal?” Malia wonders aloud. A significant portion of the apples piled in front of the other pack members have made their way over to her while everyone was else is busy freaking out. “You guys _just said_ they’re delicious.”

Derek holds up his hands, catches the one she tosses him, and bites into it. The apple is just as mouthwatering as advertized, sugary, tangy, tasting of magic and pack and comfort (which really shouldn’t _be_ flavors but somehow are anyway). “The force is strong with this one,” he observes, dropping his voice an octave.

Seeing the pure uncomplicated joy on his pack’s faces during the food fight that ensues when they boo and try to pelt him apple cores is worth the hassle of cleaning up after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need a twelve step group for chapter notes, I swear to god. Something I thought of that might seem off: Danny's not-flirting with Derek. It's like-not-want-can't have thing, and the sum total of his sublimating of issues about the abrupt way he was turned, because in my head Danny is just that mellow that a little inappropriate eyelash bashing is all the acting out he needs to do after an unwanted species change. But yeah, I'll understand if that doesn't really come across.


	3. The Weight of the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, all the chapter titles are Buffy episode names. I totally went there.

Jordan gets to the station half an hour ahead of the time he’s supposed to meet Stiles, both to finalize some paperwork and take some time to try and talk himself out of what he’s about to do. He’s seen and experienced some profoundly life-altering things in the last few months, encountered and even fought beings he never would have imagined existed outside of B movies, but the person that unnerves the most isn’t any of the supernatural creatures he’s met, or himself, for that matter.

It’s his boss’s kid.

After two tears in Afghanistan he’s all too familiar with what combat trauma does to a person, and Stiles is just too…normal (for relative values of “normal”). Burning Alpha werewolves alive, being used as a human sacrifice, being possessed by an evil fox spirit and forced to torment and kill people, including friends and family, are not experiences a teenage boy should come through anything close to well adjusted. And yet the Sheriff is proudly boasting about his son’s 4.0 GPA after every quarterly report. Then again, life on the battlefield has a way of inspiring that sense of absolute loyalty that leads to a willingness to kill, to _be_ killed if it means preserving what’s most important, and Beacon Hills is most definitely a War Zone by any standard.

Still, handing the boy, the young man, a literal loaded gun doesn’t seem like the wisest course of action, however necessary for his safety (not to mention the Sheriff’s peace of mind), and with Agent McCall expediting the concealed carry permit Stiles will be armed a matter of days after he passes his qualifications (adding _and dangerous_ to _armed_ seems ridiculously redundant from everything Jordan’s heard about his exploits over the past year).

Stiles shows up after all of five minutes. “Hey, Parrish. You ready to do this?”

“Happy Birthday, Stiles.”

“Thanks, man, and don’t look so nervous. I’m not going to celebrate surviving to eighteen by shooting you,” Stiles assures him jovially. “Not on purpose,” he amends.

That? _Not_ comforting. “Just let me finish up here.” Maybe he should file a will with the rest of the paperwork.

Stiles manages to entertain himself for all of thirty seconds before blurting, “Oh yeah! I have a present for you!”

“Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around?” Jordan drawls.

“Just scooch over for a sec.” Stiles jumps on the computer and pulls up a case file. Haigh’s case file.

“Should you really be looking at that?”

“Nope.”

“Well, as long as we’re clear.”

“That’s why you’re my favorite, Deputy Wiseass.” That should not feel like a compliment. “Here, this is your Proof of Death photo.”

Jordan jerks his eyes away from the screen before he has time to see more than flames. “I really don’t need to know what I look like burned to a crisp, thanks.” His time in EOD has given him plenty of fuel for the imagination.

Stiles obnoxiously pats him on the shoulder. “Just look. I promise it’s not bad.”

Curiosity wins out at the end but when he finally acquiesces and looks at the picture he’s not sure _what_ he’s seeing at first. “That’s…” He wants to say impossible, but that word has lost most of its meaning for him. On the computer he’s able to zoom in much closer, and it’s immediately apparent why “The Benefactor” was unimpressed by the photo. Jordan is slumped over the steering wheel, flames licking up all over his body. From a distance, with all the smoke and fire, he looks blackened, overcooked hot dog, but on closer inspection the char coating his skin is mostly polyester from his uniform and melted interior from the car. The plastic sun visor has slagged, running down over his head to plaster his hair to his head, and at maximum zoom his hair is clearly visible, not even singed. He looks like he might actually be snoring.

Jordan feels the heat on the back of his head a split second before Stiles says. “Wow, that is so cool,” and flips the zippo he’d been holding to the hair on the back of his closed. “Even your _hair_ is fireproof.”

“Then why…” Jordan trails off, actively thinking about being set on fire for the first time since it happened. He remembers the all consuming sensation of heat, no pain, but it’s not uncommon for a hot enough fire to destroy the nerve endings before they can register the agony of burning alive. The rest was mostly screaming his head off and choking on bits of his shirt as it smoldered.

“Best guess? You hyperventilated and passed out.”

“That’s…embarrassing,” Jordan concludes. It could be worse, though. He could be dead. “Wait, does this mean you know…what I am?” That question is never going to stop being a mindbender.

Stiles grimaces, looking away. “I have a pretty good idea, yeah, but I don’t want to tell you until I figure out how to test it. I mean, a safe way. There is one surefire test but if you fail…”

“If I fail I…” Jordan prompts impatiently.

“Die horribly?” Stiles admits sheepishly.

“Good thing patience is a virtue, then.” Jordan has a fair amount, and a feeling that he’ll need all of it teaching him how to handle a gun. “Speaking of which…”

“Right, firearms!” Stiles says excitedly.

This is a very bad idea.

 

***

 

Jordan begins to suspect he’s been had long before Stiles actually takes a shot. The guy is just a hair too familiar with the material and never needs anything repeated, can quote statutes on firearms regulation down to the paragraph. But just in case he’s wrong, Jordan goes through it by the book. Even so, it only takes them a couple of hours instead of all day. When Stiles finally squares off with first target, settling into a solid firing stance with the ease and comfort that only comes from years of practice, it’s not exactly a surprise that his first shot is dead on.

That the next fourteen bullets in the clip follow it one continuous burst with perfect, deadly accuracy is admittedly impressive, however.

Stiles ejects the magazine, checks the chamber, and sets down the gun. “Beginner’s luck?” he suggests too innocently.

“Only if I’m a flame retardant leprechaun,” Jordan quips. “Why do you carry around a baseball bat when you can shoot like this?”

“Uh, for starters I just turned eighteen like, _seven hours ago_ ,” Stiles reminds him. “And it would look really bad for my dad if I got caught carrying an illegal weapon.” His wry expression falters, falls. “Besides, guns are for Hunters. Turns out I don’t really like killing people all that much.”

Jordan winces in sympathy, judging himself a little for the wave of relief that floods through him at seeing that Stiles isn’t nearly so unaffected by it all, is actually trembling a little. On impulse he pulls him into a loose hug, remembering the easy way the young man has with physical contact. “It doesn’t get easier.”

Surprisingly that helps even more than embrace. “Who would have thought flaming leprechauns would be so cuddly?” Stiles snarks.

“Flame retardant leprechaun,” Jordan correctly loftily.

Stiles steps back, humming thoughtfully. “You know, we have the whole hour in here. What do you say to a friendly contest? Loser buys the burgers.”

“Sounds good to me.” Jordan has to hide a smirk, because Stiles isn’t the only one the Sheriff pranked.

 

***

 

“This…is not Checkers,” Stiles says, looking at the high school with something akin to horror.

“Keep honing those observational skills and you’ll be a detective yet.”

“I’ve changed my mind. Bring Haigh back; _he_ can be my favorite.”

Jordan grabs his bag and climbs out of the Jeep. “Come on. Your dad says you need PT now that lacrosse season’s over, and according to Derek your cardiovascular endurance is terrible.”

Stiles makes a strangled noise accompanied by a look of deepest betrayal. “Okay, my dad I get, but since when are _you_ friends with the Sour Wolf?”

“Sometimes I like to hang out with people who have actually graduated from high school,” Jordan replies drily. Besides, he actually likes Derek; they have compatible senses of humor, and the taciturn werewolf is a good listener after a particularly difficult shift. (Also, he’s seen the man naked and had to find out if Derek wanted to see him wearing just as little. That they wound up becoming friends instead is probably for the best.)

Stiles’s face brightens. “Yeah well, now you’re really gonna regret having to buy me dinner.”

They start off with an easy jog around the track. Well, it was _supposed_ to be easy.

“You know I’m really more of a sprinter,” Stiles pants, already winded after the first quarter mile lap. “It’s all about the ratio between fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers. Me? I’m all fast twitch.”

“Nothing about you right now is fast,” Jordan quips. _He_ is jogging _backwards_ and still having no trouble outpacing the younger man.

Stiles scowls. “Not all of us get to ride around on rainbows, Deputy Pots-O-Gold.”

Okay, so his wit is quick as ever, but likely counterproductive to the Keep Stiles Alive initiative given the indiscriminate way he unleashes it on people, regardless of whether or not they can rip his arms off and beat him to death with them. “Just focus on your breathing,” Jordan coaches.

Stiles starts taking exaggerated wheezing breaths. “How’s this?”

“Good. In a minute you’ll pass out. I’ll have to carry you, but at least that way you’ll make a good time on this lap.”

“Oh yeah? What’s your best time?” Stiles asks with an oddly intent look that Jordan recognizes. It’s the one the Sheriff wears when he senses a lead.

Jordan decides to play along. “In college I averaged 10.24 seconds in the 100 meter dash.”

Stiles trips over his own feet. “What!? That’s insane!”

“The world record is under ten seconds,” Jordan counters. At times he wishes was less driven; it would be nice to stop and brag about his achievements once in a while before barreling after the next one.

“Not for long,” Stiles declares with a breathy laugh. “I’ll have remember to hit the stopwatch on my phone next time I’m running from the slobbering hordes. It’ll be great. Endorsements. Girls. The whole nine yards.”

“Maybe you should focus on the next thousand, just for now.”

“Slave driver. I’ll make you a deal.” There’s that _look_ again. “I drag my ass across the one mile mark and you show me what you’ve got while I take the opportunity to lapse into cardiopulmonary shock.”

“Done.”

Jordan doesn’t quite have to carry Stiles the last fifty yards, but only because he discovers that literal running circles around him is an excellent motivational tool. That competitiveness will come in handy later, since this is obviously going to be a long-term project. They’re pretty close in size and build, or will be fairly quickly if can figure out a way to trick him into a weight room a couple of times a week. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”

“Come…closer…so I can…puke…on your shoes,” Stiles gasps pulling his phone out of the pocket of his track pants. “You…go.”

Jordan gives him a couple hard pats on the back, half as congratulations, half to jumpstart the lungs into breathing again. “Be right back.”

“M’not going anywhere,” Stiles groans, succumbing to gravity and melting to the ground next to the track.

It’s been a while since Jordan has taken the opportunity to just run, not for exercise or as a form of meditation, but flat out, nothing held back until his legs burn and heart feels like it’s about to explode. Truthfully? He’s been afraid of what he might find if he tested his physical limits, namely that they won’t _be_ there anymore. Bending a rusty old piece of rebar could be blamed on adrenaline; he was trying to save a man’s life at the time after all, but it’s a far cry from the casual disregard for human limitations the werewolves display.

All of those thoughts evaporate within half a dozen strides. He’s missed this. There’s something incredibly freeing about letting go of everything but feel of the air rushing by. The sensation of heat pools in his muscles, not a burn, but a fiery energy that propels him faster. He loses himself in it for a moment, doesn’t realize he’s already passed the finish line until he’s already through his second lap. He slows to a jug and cuts back over to Stiles, chuckling at himself (and trying not to dwell on the fact that his heart is beating slow and steady like he’s just had a good brisk sit instead of a dead sprint).

“Welp, you beat your old time,” Stiles greets, starring at him like he’s never seen him before.

“That was half a mile, not a hundred meters,” Jordan corrects.

“ _Kind of my point_. Dude, you did your second lap in ten-point-one-seven seconds. Congratulations!” Stiles cheers, complete with jazz hands. “You’re the fastest terrestrial mammal on earth! You know, assuming you’re actually mammalian.”

“That’s…” _Impossible_ is the word he wants, but it sticks in his throat. “Weird,” he settles. “Does this tie in with your theory about me.”

Stiles gives an incredulous look, eyebrows arching dramatically in way that can only have come from spending too much time around Derek. “Not really? But _who cares_? That was _so cool_!”

At least someone’s enthusiastic about it. Jordan can fix that. “Get up. You’ve got another mile to do and then strength training.”

“Evil,” Stiles grouses. “That’s your other superpower. You sir are really fast and really freaking evil.”

“And you’re stalling. Up.”

Jordan manages to get him into the weight room after they finish cardio with a suspiciously minimal amount of cajoling. The reason becomes clear when Stiles waits until a choice moment to say, “Oh, by the way, your eyes were glowing orange.”

Jordan drops the dumbbell he’s holding. It’s hit him on the shin, hard, but doesn’t leave so much as a bruise. Stiles is so gleeful at this development he offers to go Dutch at dinner.

 

***

 

They go for Chinese. Jordan listens pushes his orange chicken around his plate while Stiles falls upon a plate of potstickers with a ferocity that belongs on Animal Planet, not in a restaurant. He waits until the second course comes out (a bowl of pork lo mein big enough to hide a bowling ball in, which explains why Stiles chose the place) before asking a question that’s been bugging him for some time. “Why don’t you want to be a werewolf?”

Stiles misses his mouth with his noodles, cursing under his breath when he bites down on the chopsticks instead. “What? Where the hell did that come from?”

“Just curious.” Jordan hasn’t let himself entertain What If’s, since he didn’t have the luxury of getting to choose whether to be supernatural or not, but he’d like to know what the other side is like anyway.

It takes several mouthfuls of food and a lot of thoughtful humming before Stiles answers. “It would screw everything up. Since everything’s usually pretty screwed up anyway that would take things to like, _exponent_ levels of clusterfuckery. Or it might fix everything, two negatives into a positive and all that.”

“And you never wanted to find out?” Jordan presses, sensing evasion. The one supernatural ability he sometimes wishes he did have was the ability to detect moods and heartbeats; it would make his job a hell of a lot easier and less dangerous.

“Not really, ‘cause the negative comes with claws and fangs and doom,” Stiles replies using his chopsticks to mime teeth sinking into something. “Besides, that would make _Scott_ my Alpha.”

“But he’s your best friend,” Jordan says nonplussed. Anyone can see how close the two of them are. Hell, he’s used to maintaining an awareness of the chain of command around him and from he can tell Stiles isn’t just _in_ the pack, but the Alpha’s right hand.”

“How am I supposed to tell the guy when he’s being an idiot if my instincts are screaming at me to bring him a bone and demand ear scritches.”

“Dog jokes?” Jordan asks flatly, though not in the least surprised.

“Don’t mock it,” Stiles says seriously. “Without my plucky comic relief there’d be nothing but wolf angst and lady drama. Then where would we be?”

There’s an undercurrent in his voice that Jordan doesn’t like. “Is that all you think you contribute?”

Stiles clears his throat and looks away. “Well, this conversation just took a turn down Maudlin Street.” He stabs his food with more vehemence with than necessary. “So, how ‘bout them…seeeeasonally appropriate sports team?”

“ _Stiles_.”

“Oh my god, _fine_ ,” Stiles snaps, throwing his chopsticks onto the table between them. “It’s not about _contributing_ , okay? I’m perfectly aware that all of you Super Losers would be dead like, five times over if I wasn’t around.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Jordan prompts gently.

“I’m. Stiles,” Stiles grits out.

“I’m aware.” As reasons go it’s succinct. Also entirely unenlightening.

Stiles groans in frustration and rubs a hand over his face, unknowingly smearing it with a soy sauce Rorschach. “It’s…everybody _needs_ me to just _be Stiles_ ,” he explains awkwardly. “My dad, Scott, Lydia, Malia, they’re stuck dealing with this supernatural crap all the time and they need something _normal_ in their lives.

Jordan can’t hold back the wry smirk that pulls up the corner of his mouth. “Normal? You?”

“Shut it, Roadrunner,” Stiles snaps, smiling. “My point is somebody needs to cover doing the research, handling the mountain ash, fetching the magic mushrooms, bribing Mexican Hunter Cartels with stolen Yakuza funds, and yeah, sometimes sneaking up and stabbing the villain in the back while they’re busy monologuing wickedly at the actual heroes.”

“And all that has to be your job?” It’s a shame Stiles can’t put any of that on a college application under extracurriculars. He could stroll right into the Ivy League and out from under all the insanity in Beacon Hills. The problem, Jordan is beginning to realize, is that Stiles wouldn’t even if he could.

“I just do it; I kind of can’t not, even when no one’s asking me to.”

Jordan is nearly positive there’s more to it, but nods anyway, accepting the explanation. “You’re being Stiles.”

“All day, all night, and twice before breakfast,” Stiles agrees brightly. The sunny expressions survives all of a second and a half before his face falls. “Besides, we all know what it looks like when I’m _not_.”

And now Jordan feels like an insensitive ass. But his feelings really aren’t important right now, and it’s excruciatingly obvious just how badly Stiles needs to talk candidly with someone he doesn’t feel the need to protect. “No one has ever asked you about this before, have they?”

Stiles shrugs. “I have a slight tendency to deflect. Speaking of random intrusive questions, are you a comic book guy at all?”

“Um, what?” Jordan asks, blinking at the abrupt swerve in the conversation.

“I’m assuming you were a teenager once,” Stiles says drily. “Not that I would be surprised to learn you actually sprang out from under a moist stone as a full gown in parade dress.”

“Really? I’ve never heard that before,” Jordan drawls. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re going to see the midnight premiere of The Avengers next month with the rest of us. Don’t worry, I know the guy who writes your shift schedule and I have this feeling you’ll have the night off.”

“Okay?”

Stiles heaves a put upon sigh. “Dude, you saved me from getting euthanized by Kevorkian Licensed Nurse Practitioner. You’re in the Addams Family now. Deal with it.”

“I’ll muddle through somehow,” Jordan assures him, inordinately pleased by the declaration.

“We’re all works in progress,” Stiles agrees sagaciously. “So what were you into if not comic books? Please tell me you’ve at least seen Star Wars, because I finally got the rest of pack to watch it and it would suck to have to kick you off Team Stiles before you even get to wear your jersey.”

“I liked reading True Paranormal Stories,” Jordan admits with a grimace.

Stiles cackles at him for a full minute before trailing off into snickers. “Wow. Okay, first rule of living in Beacon Hills: whatever you do, Beware of the Foreshadowing.”

The waiter chooses this exact moment to drop off a pair of fortune cookies on is way to one of his other tables.

“Well that’s some scary unfortunate timing,” Stiles mutters. “You go first. I’m having flashbacks to the TV movie adaptation of Stephen King’s It.”

“Is there anyone who wasn’t traumatized by that movie as a kid?” Jordan asks ruefully before picking up his cookie and cracking it open, pleased by the lack of spiders, bloody eyeballs, and pincers. He snorts at the words printed on the slip, then reads it aloud. “Patience is a virtue you will need in abundance soon.” He eyes Stiles slyly. “What do you know? These things really do tell the future.”

“Har dee har har.” Emboldened, Stiles picks up his own cookie and eager pulls out the fortune. “You will die horribly when you most expect it,” he recites flatly. “Who _writes_ these things?”

“It’s just a fortune cookie,” Jordan says soothingly. “It’s not real.”

“Neither were werewolves, and look how that turned out,” Stiles grumbles, crushing the slip and hiding it under a plate. “On second thought, you’re picking up the check, since I need to start saving up for my funeral, apparently.”

“Fair enough.”

Jordan doesn’t tell him not to worry; it won’t do any good and would be tempting fate besides. Not that it matters because it’s _not going to happen_. He was ambivalent about his involvement before, but Stiles has grown on him with surprising speed, like kudzu, and now has one more person in his corner looking out for him.

Hopefully that will be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't even started with the stuff I've made up for this guy yet.
> 
> Sorry if the military references were a little trite. Also, I know nothing about track and field.
> 
> Stiles's fortune of doom comes from The Mark of Athena, book three of the Heroes of Olympus Series by Rick Riordan. Because why not? And no, evil fortune cookie makers are not descending upon Beacon Hills to bake werewolves into pastries, as cool as that would be.


	4. What's My Line?  Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes my first OC in this fic and she's a doozy. Also, the plot actually starts to, you know, happen.

Stiles hadn’t planned on impromptu boot camp taking quite so long, so he has to jump into action the instant he gets home if he wants to have everything ready in time for his party. After showering for a second time (the locker room at the high school is fine for mud, sweat, and blood, but leaves behind a special perfume of its own that needs a separate bout of vigorous scrubbing before facing wolfy noses) and having a minor (and entirely pointless) attack of OCD over the lack of organization in his bedroom, he sprints downstairs into the kitchen to finish up the “gift” the pack is giving him for his birthday. Years of monitoring his dad’s diet has given him the perfect idea for a thank you/revenge plot to pay everyone back for all the TLC he’s been getting lately.

“What sorcery is this?” his dad murmurs unhappily when he breezes into the kitchen an hour later.

“Oh you know, just a demonstration of my appreciation and agape love for all you guys.”

“If you really loved me there would not be a platter of tofu steaks on my countertop right now.”

Stiles snickers gleefully as he gives the roasted red pepper quinoa rice pasta salad a final tossing. “Studies show that the phytoestrogens in soy products help promote healthy hormone regulation,” he counters. “Gives an extra boost of testosterone to flabby, aging law enforcement.”

“I’m not flabby, Stiles.” His dad scowls darkly, but the corner of his mouth twitches constantly, betraying him.

“Good to know. So when the pack of vicious carnivores descending on our home whines about the lack of meat I can just feed them you, since you’re so _lean_ and all.” Actually he’s eager to see how long it takes them to notice that all the food is vegan. After all the time and effort he put into finding extra hearty recipes (which he may have spiked with liberal amounts of mushrooms; Derek has been eating the psychedelic kind if he thinks Stiles didn’t notice the uncomfortably orgasmic look he got while eating that stew) it wouldn’t surprise him if some of them _never_ notice. The pack may be many things but gourmands they are not (Scott and the now legendary wasabi incident come to mind, for instance). Still, he takes a little extra time on the presentation to make sure none of the dishes scream _Behold! Tofu!_

Naturally, it all goes to waste when he picks up the pot of massaman curry, and turns around to find Derek lurking behind him. The resulting bout of screeching and flailing sends the thick, piping hot liquid all down the _Stupid_ Wolf’s front (damn it all, using of sweet potato blended down instead of chopped whites is his own innovation and he was _really_ looking forward to being complimented his ingenuity relating to something other than creative mayhem), and Derek, too busy standing there gaping and glaring to be useful, neglects to use his werewolf reflexes to help catch him before the arc of destruction left by his thrashing limbs continues over the counter, sweeping the bulk of health-conscious fest onto the floor with a splattering crash.

“Gah! You! Argh!” Stiles sputters, completely and utterly past the point of coherent syllables in his furious disappointment. Following up by hitting Derek over the head with the mostly empty pot, granted, may be a little too much, but it sure is cathartic.

“Surprise,” the werewolf deadpans, dropping a small gift wrapped box in the now completely empty pot.

“Out!” Stiles snaps. “Go borrow some of my dad’s couch potato clothes from the basket on top of the dryer.” Derek’s nose surely can lead him to the smell of detergent and fabric softener, even if it let him go sniffing right on past common fucking sense. “I can’t look at you when wearing my masterpiece, so hurry up and change before I snap and serve you for the main course as a replacement!”

Derek beats it out of the kitchen without another word, face a mess of conflicting emotions, but from the tremors running over the man’s frame Stiles is guessing the only reason he left without argument is that he was struggling not to burst out laughing, and had wisely deduced that doing so in front of him would have resulted in a _stabbing_.

Stiles gets to work scraping the sad remnants of the meal into a heavy duty trash bag, muttering a string of curses just loud enough for werewolf ears to hear across the house, and tries not to scream when he hears his dad say, “Thank you, Derek,” in a fervent whisper.

The doorbell rings, an unmistakable sign of the coming apocalypse because it means not only has the pack arrived ten minutes early instead of twenty minutes late, they’ve done so having somehow mysteriously acquired manners. He gives the brightly multicolored slop a last, mournful look (it’s rich in antioxidants! _fail_ ), and trudges out to meet them. Except it’s not the pack standing on the other side of the door when his dad opens it, flanked by a strangely wary-looking Derek (now dressed in the ragged BHSD t-shirt and worn maroon sweatpants Stiles’s dad likes to wear on the days off when he attempts to become one with the recliner in the living room, game on the TV and beer in hand). Instead it’s a tiny elderly woman with a luxuriant fall of snow white hair styled a la Lauren Bacall, wearing a pastel pink pantsuit embroidered with crimson rose vines along the hems trailing up to bloom across her lapels. Her face is deeply seamed with a surprisingly few number of lines given her obvious age, her eyes alight with the youthfulness of someone decades younger and sparkling with a mischievous energy Stiles is very much familiar with, because he sees it often enough when he looks in the mirror, which only makes sense given that he _inherited it from her_.

“Grandma!?” Stiles squeaks.

“Happy Birthday, Dommie!” she cries in her surprisingly deep alto. Like her personality it seems much too big for her diminutive stature. Most people probably wouldn’t notice that the thorns are twice the length of the roses on her clothes, or care even if they did, but those with an eye for detail and a shred of self-preservation usually recognize the sartorial equivalent of a coral snake’s vivid warning colors. “And my, my; it looks like he’s not the only one in need of congratulating,” she adds blatantly leering at Derek in a way that makes Stiles want to slap his hands over his own body just from proximity. “Honestly, Jackie, I was beginning to fear you would never move on after Claudia. Granted, you moved rather _further_ on than I expected, but hot damn I can see why!”

Stiles thinks he hears something shatter. It’s probably his _sanity_.

But wait, she’s not done yet.

“Take my bags to the guest room would you please, Derek,” she says holding out two gargantuan suitcases she should not be able to lift. The werewolf accepts them wordlessly, too caught up by the storm surge of Hurricane Grandma to do anything but comply, and practically _flees the room_.

“Mom,” Jack tries. (It’s always incredibly weird for Stiles when this particular name switch occurs. His dad doesn’t really have much in the way of a familiar social circle, so the abrupt transformation from Dad the Sheriff of Beacon County to Jack the mother-ridden son of the world’s most terrifying octogenarian always hits him like a shovel to the back of the head.) “ _You’ve got the wrong idea_.”

“Do I, now?” she asks with a knowing smirk. “I’m impressed that a boy your age can keep up with such a strapping young man.” There’s a series of loud thumps as Derek trips on the stairs. “Of course I really shouldn’t be surprised. Even in is seventies your father…”

“ _Mom!_ ” Jack whimpers, flushed scarlet over every visible inch of skin and looking so mortified that spontaneous human combustion appears to be an imminent and highly merciful possibility.

Stiles find himself totally unable to process what has passed through his ears in the last two minutes and throws himself headlong into wishful thinking fugue where all that’s happened is his dad opened the door to reveal his beloved psychotic grandmother (he’ll deal with rest after his cerebral cortex recovers from overheating and reboots, presuming that _ever happens_ ). “Grandma!” he crows delightedly, darting forward to sweep her into a hug. “What are you doing here?”

She gives him a pat on the cheek that comes just shy of a reproving slap. “Like I would miss my only grandson’s birthday? Shame on you for thinking so little of me!”

“Did you find a good parking place for your mortar and pestle or did you actually fly here on a _plane_?” he asks slyly.

Grandma shakes a finger in his face. “Hush you.” She turns to her still-petrified by mortification son. “I was only teasing, boy. Now come give your mother a hug.”

Jack shuffles forward and wraps her in an embrace that look both affectionate and like an attempt to crush the tiny devil woman that spawned him. “It’s good to see you, Mom.”

Derek creeps back in while the love/murder hug is going on, body language screaming that he’s poised to run if so much as hears _Boo!_

Grandma isn’t having any of that. “Oh there you are. Please forgive me for before, it was rude I know, but an old lady has to get her kicks where and when she can, am I right?”

“Of course,” Derek says woodenly. A faint trace of his usual bored and annoyed with world look returns to his face and he adds, “It’s nice to meet you, Ms _Baba Yaga_.”

She throws back her head and lets out a booming laugh that makes Derek flinch. “You’re quick. I like you.”

“How do you know about..?” Stiles asks helplessly, waving his hands back and forth between the two of them in vain.

Derek, still visibly off-balance, answers more much more candidly than he likely would have otherwise. “I double majored in European Folklore and Comparative Mythology at NYU.”

Stiles might have to retune the settings on his psychogenic fugue in response to this information. “And you _graduated_?”

“Egregia Cum Laude in three years,” Derek confirms.

The End of the World isn’t nigh, it’s already there. Fortunately the pack chooses that moment to come stampeding through the door, which is _still_ hanging open (nosy Old Mrs. Caldecott across the street is probably already on the phone with the other blue hairs that keep the Beacon Hills rumor mill up and running, retelling every word she’s overheard on the spy grade listening device she tries to pass off as a hearing aid).

“Grandma S!” Scott shouts.

“Scotty!” she shouts right back before giving him his own Stilinski death hug. “How’s my other favorite grandson?”

“Mrs. S,” Scott groans. Blushing and looking down shyly.

The rest of the pack standing behind him his so bewildered it borders on angry, and of course, their explanation demanding glares are all aimed at Stiles. “Come on in, everybody!” he invites cheerily. He doesn’t even want to know what his face is doing, but from their expressions they’re wishing they had a hypo and a bottle of Haloperidol.

Well, he _did_ wish for a very special eighteenth birthday dinner. He just can’t remember holding the freaking _Monkey’s Paw_ when he did so.

 

***

 

Grandma is an instant hit, which doesn’t surprise Stiles in the least. She is after all a blast. In small, controlled doses (after prolonged exposure she starts to come off more like the Hiroshima Bomb). She invites Scott to tell her about all his most impressive goals on the lacrosse field, engages with Danny about ethics in electronic security, and terrifyingly, strikes a conversation with Lydia about something, what Stiles has no idea beyond the bone deep certainty that he doesn’t want to know anyway, not that it matters because it’s all carried out in _Archaic Latin_ (the old adage about men falling for women that remind them of their mothers takes a new, horrifying, and highly explanatory connotation in his mind). Whatever it is concludes with them dissolving into giggles. Giggles! Some of the other exchanges are less frightening, but much more humiliating.

“So, Malia! You must be Dominik’s girlfriend. He’s told me nothing whatsoever about you, which means I simply must tell you absolutely _everything_ about him,” Grandma says with an evil grin his direction.”

“Grandmaaaaaa,” Stiles groans.

Poor Malia looks totally at sea. She’s come a long way in terms of reintegrating with society, but having Girl Talk with vengeful edge in front of her quasi-ex with his crazy overbearing grandmother is still above her head (which arguably makes her _more_ normal, not less). “Uh…”

“Wait, _Dominik_?” Liam blurts.

“It’s my middle name,” Stiles explains.

“Why don’t you just go by that instead of “Stiles”?” Danny wonders.

Stiles shrugs. “Do I look like a Dom to you?” It takes all of a microsecond to wish he call back those words. Naturally it’s his own grandmother who cracks up first, after which everyone else who gets it joins in laughing at him.

“What’s so funny?” Malia asks, looking around at them like they’ve all lost minds.

They laugh even harder, because they’re evil and Stiles needs new friends.

“I know! We should do presents!” he suggests (shouts), hoping for end to the humiliation. Waiting for a reply would just give them another opening, so he jumps up and scurries into the dining room where the presents have been artfully stacked on the table like a festive centerpiece (he senses Lydia’s hand in this). It really hits him then just how much his circle of friends, his family, has grown. Last year there were only three, one each from his dad, Scott, and Scott’s mom. Laid out like this it wouldn’t have looked like a birthday haul so much as a photo for one of those Christmastime Charity Toy Drives. _See what the poor underprivileged children have for Christmas? Donate today and be one of Santa’s Special Helpers!_ His musings are interrupted by Derek scaring him half to death for the second time in one night. “Gah! Would make some noise when you’re lurking?”

“Sorry,” murmurs not sounding sorry in the least.

“Why are you hiding out in here, anyway?”

“She knew my mother,” Derek replies flatly.

Stiles figured as much when she recognized him on sight. “Grandma knows everyone. And everything about them.” There are _reasons_ he jokes about her being a legendary Slavic witch. “It’s awkward; I get it, man. Here, be my present mule and I promise to protect you from the Baba.”

Derek snorts and shakes his head ruefully, but steps away from the shadowy patch of wall he’s been brooding on and starts stacking up gifts in his arms.

Stiles is only dimly aware of the commotion Derek’s entrance in the other room causes, all of his attention focused down on a little black box revealed when the bigger, flashier presents were taken away. There’s no wrapping paper or card to say who it’s from, so he goes ahead and opens it, sucking in a surprised breath when he sees the pendant inside. It’s a vaulknut, a sort of Norse equivalent to the Triskelion, a single continuous line that weaves through itself to create the optical illusion of three triangles interlocking. It’s beautiful, the metal gleams like platinum with a faint buttery sheen, worked into a triangular prism instead of a flat surface, with markings cut into the outward facing edge, Ogham Runes in fact. He can read the words, but his attempt at translating them off the top of his head is only somewhat successful. Overcome with a sudden case of Gollum he slips the long chain over his head and tucks the pendant into his shirt where it settles against his skin, a cool, comforting weight that he finds reassuring, somehow.

“What’s the hold up, son?” his dad calls from the living room.

Stiles shakes himself out of his weird little trance and grabs the rest of the presents, the pendant already gone from his mind. He gets plenty of other things to replace it. Scott gives him a hardcover arc from one of the classic Avengers comics, Liam, a gift card to Amazon (they really don’t know each other yet, but it’s definitely the right gift card for him, so progress), from Danny a jump dive with god only knows what kind of hackery shenanigans on it (his dad comes down with a sudden massive interest in the ceiling for a few minutes). Mason gives him a small cast iron cauldron which cracks everybody up (including grandma, albeit due to an entirely unrelated inside joke). Derek, Malia, and his dad have already given him their personalized presents. There’s also a number of less meaningful but more practical things. New lacings for his lacrosse stick, a waterproof carrying case for his laptop (so funny he forgets to laugh), and a plastic greenhouse starter kit with a few packets of different ornamentals commonly used in magic, among others. He does not get choked up over the care and thought that went into his gifts. Nope. And even if he does, the birthday rule applies here. His grandmother apologizes profusely for not bringing his gift. Her trip was a spur of ht moment thing apparently, due to a last minute invite to a World War II symposium in San Francisco the next day, which turns up an amusing coincidence.

Kira nearly drops the set of shuriken she got him when she hears about it. “My dad is there right now!”

Grandma’s eyes widen slightly in recognition. “Professor Yukimura, right? Recently of Columbia University?”

“You know my dad?” Kira asks, perplexed.

“Grandma’s a Professor Emeritus of Modern Military History at the University of I’d Like to Buy A Vowel in Poland,” Stiles explains.

She makes a rude noise. “Come now, Dominik, Polish is not that hard to pronounce.”

“It so is,” he insists.

A series quick, polite raps on the front door stops the familiar argument before it can gain steam, and they way all the werewolves in the room immediately tense up neatly slaughters the carefree mood. (It just wouldn’t be a Stiles party without a crisis, which is not a great way to emulate Buffy.)

His dad reads the situation as easily as he does, gives him a stay in your seat glare, and answers the door himself. “Parrish,” he greets with a sigh. “I take it there’s a situation.”

“Yes sir. I’m sorry to interrupt but…” the Deputy trails off on seeing their extra guest.

“Jordan Parrish, meet my mother Ana Stilinski. Mom, this is Deputy Parrish.”

“Well well, what do they put in the water around here?” Grandma asks, eagerly pouncing on fresh prey to terrorize. “Are you single by any chance?”

“Mother,” Jack groans. (The Sheriff survived almost a full minute before the Son resurfaced, it’s a record.)

“Yes, ma’am,” Jordan replies with a winning smile, apparently unfazed. He _has_ been to war though, so there’s a vanishingly small chance he’s encountered something even more terrifying than her and is therefore inoculated.

“Excuse us for a moment,” the Sheriff says stepping outside and closing the door behind them.

Stiles eagerly looks over at Scott whose face has taken on constipated look while moves his hands in jerky little motions. It’s one of his more recent brilliant ideas, using Sign Language as a countermeasure against wolfy hearing, an idea that was actually inspired by his grandmother’s ramblings about the significance of the Navajo language during World War II (which to hear her tell it was _her_ great idea). It goes well for all of ten seconds (if getting the phrase Girl Give Hungry Tree Growing qualifies as “well”) then Derek sidles into his field of vision and quite legibly signs, “Good Try Stiles.” He is less than amused to see that the name sign Derek picked out for him is miming shooting himself in the head with the sign for the letter S instead of a finger gun. Hours and hours of memorizing signs and learning grammar wasted. _Ass_. His dad comes back in before they can get into silent screaming match.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to cut this short. A body was found a few miles from here and I want all you kids home ASAP. Capisce?” His dad winces a little over the codeword Stiles came up with for announcing supernatural disaster in company. Whatever it is must be bad because all the werewolves are looking slightly green. Joy.

“That’s my cue, then,” Grandma says standing. For a moment her movements turns jerky and her façade of youthful vigor cracks. Just a flash and gone, but it sets a seed of dread in Stiles’s chest. “I better turn in anyway. My car is coming at four a.m. to take me to San Francisco. Dommie, come give your grandma a kiss,” she demands imperiously.

Stiles does so. “Love you, Grandma. Stay for longer next time, okay?”

“Oh please,” she scoffs. “Like you need an old lady around slowing you down.” She flicks her gaze over to Malia suggestively, leans in close and whispers. “Your window isn’t very far off the ground and I’m a heavy sleeper. As long as you’re back before Jackie gets home it’ll be like you never left, hmm?”

Jesus Christ. Not only is his own grandmother shipping him but she’s trying to enable an illicit tryst on a school night ( _he_ may be legal now, but Malia is still seventeen which means sleeping with her _isn’t_ ). “Good night!” he says overloudly, ears burning with the knowledge that most of the people in the room are trying not to laugh even if _he_ can’t hear or smell it. “I’m, uh…going up to my room now. Night guys! Thanks for coming over! And the loot! And…good night!” he dashes for the stairs before he can die of humiliation. Grandma Visits: always entertaining, but a little can go a very long way. He immediately goes over to the window and slides open. After a minute’s worth of goodbying and ostentatious door slamming the pack is out of the house, and ten second later all of those with supernatural agility are eeling in through the open window. “What do we got?” he asks Scott.

Derek takes it upon himself to answer instead (though in all fairness, Scott is probably not the right person to ask for a quick tactical rundown of a gory murder). “A body came into the morgue, throat ripped out, exsanguinated, gutted, and the intestines partially eaten. Melissa texted the pictures to Deaton who called Parrish. It looks like a revenant.”

Stiles really shouldn’t feel so excited, but since his ASL plot crashed and burned so spectacularly he ecstatic that at least one of his carefully laid preparations is going pay dividends tonight. “I’ve got the stuff right here!” He darts over the rowan wood chest he keeps at the foot of his bed (thank and all your paranoid insanities Calaveras) and pulls out some of the spoils of his dedicated thrift store combing. “Ta da!” He tosses Scott, Malia, Liam, and Danny a banged up old silver candlestick each. There aren’t any left for Derek, who will just have to get eaten. Shame.

Danny stares at the improvised weapon in his hand, mouth turned down in confusion. “Is this Clue?”

“Nope, it’s a rogue Vampire Thrall,” Stiles informs him brightly. “They’re…”

“Something I’ll explain on the way,” Derek cuts in. “You, Stiles, are _staying here_. Lydia and Mason are sneaking back in a minute and they’ve been instructed to taser you if try to leave.”

For a second he almost objects out of pure reflex, but the reality is he has no weapons, skills, or unique knowledge that will make him anything more than a yummy snack in this situation, and he knows it. “Somebody take video, please?” he asks tiredly.

The ‘wolves all stare at him intently, like their trying to dig around in his head for duplicity.

“Oh just go,” he spits herding them towards the window.

“I’m really sorry about this,” Scott says earnestly. “I’ll bring you back a vampire fang!”

Bless his fluffy heart. “Break some legs!” he calls quietly as the pack, minus the squishy blood-filled humans fades into the trees. Yes he’s an integral part of the pack, and yes they like and want him just the way he is, but it’s time like these when he feels lost, not alone, just stuck, like he has no idea which way he’s headed. Okay, so he can shoot, and maybe do some magic someday, and while whaling on Derek with a baseball bat might not be the most practical preparation for a life or death situation it sure as hell is fun. The thing is he’s not a cop, Deaton wouldn’t even entertain the idea of training him as an emissary, and his mighty bludgeoning skills are only likely to harm a supernatural creature if they fall down laughing and happen to land on something sharp. So yeah, he has an important role to perform alright, but what the hell _is_ it, exactly?

“Happy Fucking Birthday to me,” he mutters slouching over to his laptop and pulling up the Argent Bestiary. There’s only so much time to figure out all the ways in which his pack is about to die horribly so he can preemptively point out their stupidity and save their furry asses. His presents from earlier seem a lot less shiny now that the only thing he wants for his birthday is for all of them to come back alive.

He jumps to the entry on vampires and gets to work, humming the batman theme under his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> Derek fills the pack in on the basics of vampire lore and leads them on a hunt for the deranged revenant before any more innocents can be harmed. Naturally it's a trap.


	5. Beauty And The Beasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes violence, gore, and whatnot.

Derek tries to focus on the task at hand and not the absolutely terrifying woman he’s just met. Sure, on the surface she appeared to be a slightly batty, effusively genial old lady, but he’ll eat the spare tire in the back of his truck with wolfsbane dressing if that’s all there is to her. From the safety of the dining room he was able to observe her by her voice and heartbeat without getting sucked in by her force of personality, and her style of social interaction followed a very specific pattern. Unbalance the mark. Engage them with enthusiastic conversation over a shared interest. Draw them in by putting yourself on their side. It’s a fairly basic tactic used by con artists, but when you add in her abnormal amount of vigor, the kind that only carries that far into old age after a lifetime of continuous physical conditioning, along with a profession that allows for international travel and a broad knowledge base that includes technology, military, and dead languages, it paints another picture entirely, and an unmistakable one at that.

Ana Stilinski is a Hunter, and a damn good one to make it to her age without so much as a limp. Moreover she wanted Derek to know; her little slips ups like “forgetting” to apologize to him directly when she knew he could hear her spoke volumes, both about her true profession and her desire to keep it from her son and grandson.

Derek is keeping his mouth shut.

Though grateful to have a distraction while he sublimates the urge to run and hide, he wishes it was something other than a vampire, anything at all really. Pop culture likes to exaggerate the species rivalry between them and werewolves, when in reality it’s a matter of vampire versus every other supernatural creature on the planet. The undead are just too strong, too disgusting, and too prone to losing any semblance of humanity and bingeing on wanton carnage to be allowed to exist anywhere near a claimed territory. With Beacon Hills already the target of an uncomfortable amount of scrutiny they need to get this handled _yesterday_.

“Can you get a scent?” the Sheriff asks. It’s taken some time but the man now voices such questions without wincing or disbelief that words are coming out of his mouth coloring his tone.

Derek nods.

Scott makes choking noises. “It’s kind of hard to miss. Uhck, it’s like…rotten blood and death and…” he trails off, turning his head away with green tingeing his face. The smell coming from the partially eviscerated and eaten body on the slab in front of them probably has more to do with that than the scent of what killed it, though.

“I thought vampires drank blood,” the Sheriff says waving at the gaping wounds.

“Normally, yes,” Deaton concedes. “But without s governing consciousness to keep what’s left of thrall vampire’s mind stable their behavior becomes dangerously erratic. This one tore out the throat with a bite from its human teeth instead of using its fangs. The attempt to gain sustenance by actually eating their victims instead of simply draining them is also very common. Of course, this is the first time I’ve actually encountered on myself.”

The Sheriff looks surprised. “Really? You’d think based on how many damn movies and TV shows there are about them that people would be lining up to get turned.”

“Most people who get turned wind up like the thing that did this,” Derek explains. “Just a hungry, empty shell.”

“So…not like Twilight, then?” Scott clarifies.

The True Alpha ladies and gentlemen. “No, Scott, not like Twilight.”

“Boys,” the Sheriff says sharply. “Will you be able to handle this?”

Derek nods. “It should be quick.” He doesn’t say easy but considers adding _gross_.

“Still, I want you all to go together. You too Parrish.”

“Yes sir,” the Deputy acknowledges.

“Do you have any hollow points for that?” Derek asks, eyeing the man’s sidearm doubtfully.

“Head shots, huh?” Parrish asks instantly catching on. “No, but I have a shotgun.”

That’ll get the job done just fine. “Okay.”

“Okay,” the Sheriff repeats. “While take care of that I’ll stay here and see what I can do to kill the rumor going around about rabid cannibals stalking the streets.”

Derek privately thinks the man is going to go prematurely gray within a year of running around trying to put out supernatural fires and scatters the ashes, but bringing that up will only invoke that mulish expression that both Stilinski men are so fond of. “Let’s go.”

 

***

 

Checking out the corpse itself was more of a precautionary measure than a necessity, because even Danny, barely two moons old, is covering his nose and flinching away from the stench lingering in the alley where the kill happened.

“Okay boys and girls,” Stiles says over speakerphone. “Here’s what out Big Book of Bad had to say about the undead…”

“Can’t we just skip this part?” Malia interrupts hefting her candlestick.

Liam swings his like a baseball bat. “Yeah, Stiles taste in interior décor’ll kill it on sight,” he drawls.

Derek feels a twinge of regret seeing the inevitable pattern repeat as Scott’s new Beta edges between the Alpha and the Stiles like Isaac had before him. This time around he’s going to make sure the human isn’t left by the wayside. While he’s at it he should probably check that book for anything exceptionally dangerous. If Liam winds up with poisonous snakes where his eyeballs should be it might put a bit of strain on already uncertain pack dynamics. “Focus,” he snaps. “One revenant between all of us isn’t much of a challenge, but if you’re careless for even a second it will rip you in half.”

“Thank you, Derek,” Stiles says primly. “Now, vamps come in three-ish flavors: Master, Servitor, and lastly Thrall, which also comes in Thrall Lite, hence our friend the revenant.”

“How long were you working on that one?” Lydia’s muffled voice asks sweetly.

“I thought it was funny,” Masons says siding with Stiles.

“Yes, because you want him to photocopy his grimoire for you.”

“VAMPIRES,” Stiles shouts overtop them, “Are shapeshifters. A thrall looks like a very pale human until it shifts then it looks…uh…”

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Derek interjects, remembering the hideous illustrations in his family’s own bestiaries. If Hollywood had used the real deal as inspiration he wouldn’t have to know the name Robert Pattinson.

“Bad?” Scott gulps.

“Sort of like a three day old drowning victim that died in blood instead of water,” Parrish describes. “Didn’t everyone read the bestiary?”

“Some of us have _lives_ ,” Liam grumbles.

“You know what?!” Stiles barks. “Fuck this!” And hangs up.

“That could have gone better,” Danny remarks drily.

Liam snorts. “Yeah, what’s his problem?”

“Maybe it’s that made him stay behind under threat of electrocution and wouldn’t listen when he tried to tell you how to keep your ass from getting bitten off a deranged walking corpse,” Derek suggests. “On his _birthday_.” Maybe he should just encourage Stiles to go ahead and curse Liam now and spare them all the drama.

“Call him back,” Malia orders.

“He’s not answering,” Scott pouts.

“Neither is Lydia,” Danny adds.

They both look at Liam. “Okay, fine.” He tries his own phone. “Mason’s not picking up either. What did Stiles do, throw all their phones out the window?”

Derek wouldn’t be surprised if that if that’s exactly what Stiles did, from someone with a history of throwing homemade incendiaries it’s a fairly reaction to losing his temper all things considered. “It doesn’t matter, so shut up and listen, or leave before you get yourself or someone else killed,” he says harshly.

Scott looks appalled at his outburst. “ _Dude_.”

“Parrish, can you take over?” Derek asks ignoring the Alpha’s judgmental glare.

“Sure thing, Hale,” the Deputy drawls. “In a nutshell: Thralls are like Omegas, Servitors are like Betas, and Masters are like Alphas. The difference is anyone who dies from being drained by any type of vampire automatically turns.”

“Will the guy who died..?” Scott begins to ask.

Derek shakes his head in the negative. “That man was _mauled_ , not drained. But the next one might be though, and then there would be two, then four, then eight, and sooner or later one of their victims will come back as Servitor instead of a Thrall, and instead of bunch disorganized revenants we’ll have a nest on our hands that operates as a single intelligent organism. Is everyone caught up on its important we do this right?” Nobody voices any further protests. “Good. Scott’s claws will make lasting wounds on it but the rest of need to use the silver. Aim for the head. Their skulls are harder and thicker than a humans but if can crush them it will put a vampire down long enough to take its head off.”

Kira pats the hilt of her katana. “You guys set ‘em up and I’ll knock ‘em down,” she says confidently.

“No stake through the heart?” Scott clarifies, looking almost disappointed.

“Wooden stakes only work on thralls but their hide is tough and they won’t hold still long enough for you to hammer it in,” Derek confirms. “And it only paralyzes them as long as it stays in.”

“Actually,” Parrish chimes in, “There was a note about wooden stakes in the bestiary. Apparently a Hunter in Norway during the Nazi Invasion in World War II used wood from Yggdrassil to instantly slay a group of Thralls with a Servitor under the control of a Thule Necromancer.”

Derek is massively disappointed that not a single person in his pack reacts to any of the mind boggling statements contained in that sentence (save Kira who opens her mouth but closes it again muttering “ _Later_ ” to herself). “Maybe we can find some on EBay for next time,” he quips sourly. “One last thing: watch out for its fingernails. Even regular human nails can cut skin and its will be a lot stronger and harder than that.”

Scott looks around at his pack with equal parts worry and confidence. It’s not the most reassuring expression. “Is everybody ready?”

One way to find out.

 

***

 

The trail isn’t hard to follow, but all the same it takes them a considerable amount of time to actually catch up, because the revenant is apparently intent on taking the scenic tour of Beacon Hills, meandering through back alleys, the gaps under overpasses, an abandoned playground, essentially every place one is not likely to find another living soul on a Sunday evening. On the whole it’s not so odd; the vampire is clearly completely off its rocker based on the wounds it left on its victim, and yet Derek can’t help but feel uneasy at the purposeful purposelessness of its unnecessarily convoluted path. By the time they finally get close enough that the scent changes from trail to presence it’s nearing midnight and a cold mist is rolling over the ground. Fog isn’t exactly uncommon on the western side of the Sierras in April but this thick, soupy lake of white that stays within two feet of the earth save for drifting grasping tendrils looks like it was cooked up in an SFX studio somewhere. So naturally they wind up in a graveyard.

“This seems kind of…” Scott whispers tensely.

“On the nose,” Derek finishes.

“Maybe it went back to its coffin?” Danny offers, eyes jerking around wildly at every swirl and turn in the mist.

“I checked all the recent burials,” Parrish says confidently. “No deaths in the last week with COD’s that could be mistaken for a vampire draining someone. It must have been drawn here by the magic stump thing.”

Derek smiles in spite of himself; Parrish always seems to come back to the Nemeton, still more weirded out by the fact he responded to its call unconsciously than by anything else he’s found out since being clued in. “Stop!” he hisses spying a small dark silhouette in the shifting vapor. “There it is.” The revenant appears in the shape of a boy, a street kid by his baggy, shabby clothes, no more than thirteen when he died, pale and almost pretty with huge soulful brown eyes. Then it speaks and Derek feels like his blood has turned into gelato.

“Help me,” it begs. “I’m so cold.”

“It’s just a _kid_ ,” Liam growls, clearly distressed at the idea of hurting it, much less killing it.

Malia’s fingers flex on her candlestick as she shakes her head in tiny jerks that don’t interrupt her focused attention on the creature. “No it’s not.”

Scott gulps loudly. “Uh…I think you mean _they’re_ not.”

A dozen more vampires just _appear_ in the mist around them without a sound or scent to betray their approach, even though all of them have the empty gaze of a Thrall that tries to pull anyone who meets it in and down. To move in perfect coordination and mask their presence means they’re under the control of a greater vampire, which means… “Trap,” he spits.

Then the thralls shift, completing the horror movie scene. Their bellies distend grotesquely, faces grow puffy, and skin takes on a mottled, brick red hue somewhere between a sunburn and freshly forming bruise. The fangs that peek out from behind swollen cherry red lips, however, are sleek white and wickedly pointed, and the blunt nails tipping sausage fingers gleam as their limbs stretch out, becoming knobbly but still powerful-looking.

“This is what happens when you hang up on Stiles,” Derek mutters philosophically and slightly hysterically.

The fight begins, and immediately devolves into pure chaos. Derek is rushed by three of them, including Little Boy Lost, and everyone else gets two each save Parrish, who stands back in frustration holding his useless firearm, unable to fire a shot into the churning mass of bodies. That the vampires never so much as glance at the Deputy proves beyond a doubt that not only are the Thralls bound to someone, but someone with a tactical awareness that speaks to experience.

Derek has to put any other observations on hold after that, all his attention on the fight. The Vampires are stronger and faster, but the second is more a consequence of the former rather than an enhanced ability in its own right, which gives the wolves a definite advantage so long as they don’t actually try to close on any single target. Derek can only imagine what he must look like, probably a crazy bludgeon-wielding ballerina, spinning and jumping and sliding as he uses the silver candlestick to bat aside anything that comes too close. The air is filled with an unholy symphony of finger bones breaking, punctuated by the occasional deeper crack of a radius or ulna. Despite this the Thrall fight in perfect silence, showing no evidence that they’re even _aware_ when their limbs stop working properly. Only the touch of the silver on their skin brings out anything close to a real facial expression, and even then it’s just a vague mute snarl. Ultimately though, the fight is going to come down to endurance, and unless the pack gets enough a series of very lucky hits they’re not going to be able to team up the way they need to put the vamps down for good before the tire and get pulled down one by one. The grim assessment spurs Derek to fight harder, faster, aiming for elbows, kneecaps, whatever will inflict the greatest amount of mechanical disability on his opponents, but their bones are made of harder stuff than humans’, and without getting silver actually in the injuries themselves the vampires are able to heal just shy of fast enough to break even. So when he hears Parrish shout “Derek seven low!” he doesn’t hesitate, throwing himself into a roll that takes him between two of his attackers.

The shotgun roars twice more or less decapitating the closest vampire. Derek uses the distance he’s gained to take a running leap and bring the candlestick down on the crown of the furthest with all his strength and momentum behind it, smashing it like a rotted watermelon. Sadly while so he surrenders to his dramatic side, roaring in triumphant fury, which means the backsplash from the vampire’s cranium bursting goes right in his open mouth. It’s not dangerous or directly harmful, but it is _beyond_ vile, and he drops flat while he retches, trusting Parrish to take the last one off his back. Sure enough the shotgun roars twice more and another mostly beheaded corpse collapses onto the ground next to him.

Parrish jogs over and kneels beside him, oddly calm. “This isn’t a trap. Look.”

Derek checks on the progress of the others’ fights and sees what the Deputy means instantly. All of them are proceeding at their own tempo, two vampires per pack member, and each match up perfectly, impossibly balanced. Scott’s claws have turned both of his into walking tic-tac-toe boards but every time a vulnerable spot opens up it’s always more soft tissue, nothing to give the Alpha’s superior strength a way to pin one of them down long enough to cripple it. With some of the others the discrepancies are even more dramatic. Kira’s are barely attacking so much as square dancing with her, switching off between menacing her flank and pulling back out of the reach of her sword. Malia and Liam are both attacking their vampires with brute ferocity that pays little mind to defense, but their opponents never take the advantage. Oddly enough Danny is the only other pack member to have dropped one of his opponents, the reflexes honed by years of playing goal combining with the killer that’s finally sowing itself into a very effective combination. Derek rushes over to him and picks up the spare while its back is turned (sportsmanship doesn’t even enter into midnight graveyard brawls between supernaturals, and he is perfectly fine with that).

With two of the silver weapons freed up and the crowd thinned out enough for Parrish to get an occasional clear target, they mop up the last of the vampires with ease, if not alacrity; the survivors fight more and more defensively each time one of their brethren falls. When the last of the undead is dead in truth, or at least well enough on their way Derek stops and checks over the pack. Aside from a few minor cuts and bruises that have already healed, they’re not hurt. _At all_.

“We…” Liam pants, “Are badass.”

“We _fell for a diversion_ ,” Derek snaps. “They weren’t trying to kill us. Whoever was controlling them just wanted us _here_ as long as possible.”

“Why would someone sacrifice a dozen people just to distract us?” Scott asks, more horror than doubt in his tone.

“These were not people,” Parrish says quietly. “Not anymore.”

Kira gulps, looking decidedly nauseous. “I’ll…I’ll finish up. You know, with the ones that need it.” Her celestial blade gleams unnaturally bright under the clotted crimson splattered over its length, made for exactly this kind of task; a macabre truth that seems to be crashing down on the young kitsune, possibly for the first time.

Derek looks around at the crumpled bodies, men, women, a couple are barely more than children. Their faces are all damaged beyond any hope of recognition or identification, but they all share a single distinguishing feature: their threadbare clothing. “You know them.”

“Some,” Parrish confirms. “I recognize at least half of these from patrolling. Local homeless mostly. And they were still alive two days ago.”

“Back up to the part where this is all a diversion,” Liam insists.

“Something is going down somewhere else,” Danny answers. “Somebody wants us here to make sure we can’t be there.”

“No,” Derek growls. “If they just wanted us out of the way we’d be dead. This about something…”

Pain sears through his gut and doubles over with an involuntary whine of agony, one in a chorus of six. The whole pack is on its knees hugging their midsections, all save Parrish who finally looks freaked out for first time that Derek’s seen.

“What the hell?” Parrish blurts.

Derek would laugh if he could enough air to do so. “Apples,” he almost-chuckles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> Jordan tries to discern the mastermind's true purpose while simultaneously wrangling a pack of supernatural creatures writhing in agony. Even if he succeeds without getting a hand bitten off, will he be able to make it to wherever, or whoever, in time?


	6. As You Were

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took out the mpreg warning, cause that's not happening.

Jordan has never felt so useless in his entire life. Police work, much like life in the military, comes with a multitude of rules and regulations, procedures that provide structure and direction no matter how chaotic the situation. It never occurred to him before now just how dangerous coming to rely them overmuch could be.

There are no protocols that cover _this_.

“What the fuck?” he blurts as the others fall to ground to writhe pain. Calm and confident in a crisis, that’s him.

“Apples,” Derek repeats.

“Do you want Macintosh or Granny Smith?” Well, at least his sarcasm is still working.

Derek makes a sound halfway between a laugh and dry heaves. “Magic. Cursed. Deaton.”

Jordan grabs hold of that and runs with it, pulling out his phone and dialing the vet. He gives the man a quick recap of the last hour. “Now they’re all on the ground. Derek is the only one that can even speak and all I can get out of him is something about cursed apples.”

Deaton hums thoughtfully. “Do you have any mountain ash? If this _is_ magic, their natural healing abilities should be able to fight off if you can sever the connection to the caster.”

The bestiary suddenly seems much less edifying than it had only a moment ago. He’ll be paying a visit or twelve to that occult bookstore Malia found the next chance he gets. “I don’t, but Stiles should at his house.”

“He’s not with you?” Deaton asks with shock evident in his voice.

“He…agreed to stay behind,” Jordan replies. “We haven’t heard from him in a while now.”

The sigh that comes over the line is blisteringly dry, disappointed, and masterfully judgmental all at once. “Have considered that the purpose of this diversion was to keep the pack away from some _one_ instead of some _place_?”

“I’m caught up, thanks,” Jordan says snippily, aware of the painful irony. Stiles would have been perfectly safe if they’d just _brought him with them_. Whoever is behind this must have had them under surveillance for some time to know that the pack would leave Stiles at home, a less than enheartening development. “But I can’t go after Stiles and take care of the pack.”

“One moment please,” Deaton murmurs absently. There’s a series of beeps, then a pause, a second. “I can’t reach Stiles or the Sheriff’s Station.”

Because of course the situation is even more dire than it already appears, but that does give him an idea. “The station is only a few blocks from here. The Sheriff’s office is lined with mountain ash but I can’t carry everyone.”

“Take Derek,” Deaton suggests. “I’m coming for the others.”

“Hurry.” Jordan hands up and quickly tries to call Stiles, Lydia, Stilinski, and the station, getting three voicemails and a busy signal for his trouble. “Come on, Hale,” he grunts leaning down and pulling Derek’s arm around his shoulders.

The werewolf’s color improves instantly. “What…?”

“We need to move,” Jordan admonishes. “Stiles is in trouble.”

“Is it a day ending in Y?” Derek jokes weakly.

“Walk now, joke later.”

They take off at the world’s fastest terrestrial hobble, make it to the station at the same time he gets a text from Deaton saying he’s at the cemetery, that he stopped by the Stilinski house on the way and found its mountain ash barrier active but, no one but the Sheriff’s sleeping mother actually inside it.

“Can you walk in on your own?” Jordan asks.

Derek nods, though the expression on his pale, sweating face is less than confident. “Just go.”

They go in through the back to minimize awkward question but they needn’t have bothered; the building is suspiciously empty. “Where is everyone?” Jordan mutters to himself.

“One heartbeat inside Stilinski’s office, one at the front desk,” Derek supplies in a strained voice.

Right, super hearing. “Can you smell anything off?”

Derek snarls at him. “Just my stomach acid eating through my internal organs. _Move_.”

Jordan hauls him into the office and closes the door behind them. For a split second he feels a wash of relief, then sinks to the floor with a groan. “Um, how do I make this work?”

“Believe,” Derek croaks.

“Why don’t I wish upon a star while I’m at it,” Jordan mutters, feeling patently ridiculous as he closes his eyes and places his hands on the doorframe. Magic wood, why not? Overthinking things isn’t going to be helpful so he focuses on _feeling_ instead, on his desire, his drive to Protect Others, something which is as much a part of him as his own name. He tries to force it to flow down through his arms and into the mountain ash. Derek, his friend, is in pain, needs help. The pack for all their abilities is still a bunch of kids that shouldn’t have to fight monsters and spells just to get through high school alive. And Stiles, Stiles has to be alright; anything else would destroy the Sheriff.

Failure is not an option. The only problem is he has no idea how to tell if it’s working or not. There are no flashes of light, no bursts of phantom wind, no swelling crescendo in the dramatic soundtrack to let him know he’s succeeding. He stays focused like that until Derek drawls, “Would you and the door like some privacy?”

Jordan opens his eyes and scowls at the werewolf. “I know where Sheriff Stilinski keeps the wolfsbane bullets.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Speaking of, notice anything missing?”

He stares at him blankly, then turns around to look at his boss. The Sheriff is sitting at his desk with distant, foggy look on his face, apparently oblivious to their presence as he mechanically turns imaginary pages in an empty file folder and sips non-existent coffee from his mug. “Well that explains why the phone isn’t working,” Jordan mutters nodding at the heavy leather gloves and bolt cutters sticking out of the In-Box. “Another spell?”

“It’s not a spell, it’s a sending,” Derek corrects while waving a hand slowly in front of the Sheriff’s face.

“A psychic projection?” Jordan asks. This is something he’s at least a little familiar with, in theory, and idly savors the irony that finding out he’s up against paranormal mental abilities comes as a relief. “Why isn’t he coming out of it like you did?”

“I’m a werewolf. Supernatural creatures are harder to manipulate.”

“So how do we snap him out of it?”

“The usual way,” Derek smirks, backing up. “You do it; I’m not getting arrested again.”

Jordan closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I, am going to get fired.” Before he can dwell too much on what he’s about to he delivers a full armed slap across his boss’s face.

The Sheriff blinks a couple of times and looks up at him. “Did you need something, Deputy?” he asks in a dangerously mild voice.

“Stiles is missing,” Derek supplies.

Those are the magic words. “Explain. Fast.”

“It was all a diversion,” Jordan answers quickly. “When we caught up with the vampire we attacked by a dozen more. Then the pack was laid out by some kind of psychic attack.”

The Sheriff obviously does not share his opinion on the existence of ESP. “That’s just _perfect_. And Stiles?”

“We don’t know,” Derek replies. “Deaton found the mountain ash ward up at your house, but Stiles, Lydia, and Mason weren’t there. Your mother is fine.”

“ _Her_ I’m not worried about,” Stilinski mutters. “I can see Stiles taking the other two and going after the rest of the pack, but why the hell would just wander off in the middle of a crisis?”

Jordan grimaces, wishes he didn’t have to be the one to point out the obvious. “We couldn’t reach you.”

The Sheriff frowns and reaches into his pocket, comes up empty-handed. “My phone is gone.”

“She must have taken it when she hypnotized you into cutting the phone line,” Derek explains.

“When I did _what_? Wait, _she_?”

The werewolf nods, expression grim. “The Master Vampire. In the legends they’re always women.”

“That wasn’t in the Bestiary,” Jordan objects, not against what Derek is saying but at the perpetually mounting sense of bumbling ignorance weighing him down.

Derek shrugs. “My uncles liked to debate whether or not they even exist, I’m not surprised the Argents haven’t encountered one.”

The Sheriff shakes off his look of Massively Overwhelmed, schooling his face into one of a professional, clinical focus. “So what are we talking about here, Dracula?”

Jordan shifts uncomfortably. “Actually Sir, Stoker’s Dracula is fairly accurate depiction of a Servitor Vampire, at least according to the information in the Bestiary.” Which is admittedly highly disturbing given how many powers the character possessed and what it took to actually kill him.

“Uh huh. So how can we even be sure it’s a Master?” the Sheriff asks.

“Because of the apples,” Derek answers.

Jordan fields Stilinksi’s incredulous look by raising his hands and saying, “I have no idea. He keeps bringing up the apples. Which weren’t actually cursed but somehow made everyone sick?”

“Stiles used magic to grow an apple tree in my loft,” Derek growls tersely.

“He grew a tree,” the Sheriff repeats flatly. “And this didn’t strike you as strange?”

“It’s _Stiles_.”

Jordan chuckles under his breath, because the man has a point.

“The seed he spelled shouldn’t have turned into a full grown tree overnight,” Derek continues. “Stiles doesn’t have that kind of power. Not yet.”

“That’s a disturbing qualifier,” the Sheriff mutters.

Derek’s mouth twitches in a rueful almost-smile. “The Master must have added her blood to the spell, which wouldn’t have worked if it was one of the undead.”

Jordan remembers the sickly ichor that flowed from the Thralls’ wounds and suppresses a shudder. “You’re saying it, she, is _alive_?”

The Sheriff clears his throat loudly. “This is all very fascinating but maybe we can save the seminar on Vampire Biology until after we find my son?”

“Yes Sir,” Jordan says reflexively. “What would a Master Vampire want with Stiles anyway?” he wonders aloud.

“Nothing Good,” Derek bites out. “Someone’s calling me, he murmurs pulling out his phone. Scott.” He pushes a couple of buttons. “You’re on speakerphone. The Sheriff is here. He’s fine.”

“ _Oh thank god,”_ Scott sighs. _“Any news about Stiles?”_

“No,” Stilinski snaps. “You’re his Alpha, can’t you, I don’t know, sense his location or something?”

_“Um, maybe?”_

“We’re working on it,” Derek snorts. “It doesn’t matter anyway, not if a Master Vampire is trying to hide him.”

“ _A_ Master _, you’re sure?”_ Deaton’s voice intrudes.

“No,” Derek admits. “The information is on Peter’s laptop, which I still can’t find.”

 _“How bad is it if it’s a Master?”_ Scott asks.

“In Sub-Saharan Africa they can turn into giant vultures that shoot lightning bolts,” Derek replies.

“Lightning bolts, Jesus,” the Sheriff mutters. “What about the other vampires, the Thralls? Is there anything on them that could give us a clue? A scent maybe?”

 _“They uh…mostly smell like death.”_ Even over the phone line Scott’s nausea comes through clearly.

Jordan thinks back over the fight, trying to pull a helpful observation out of his recollections; his efforts to find something that sticks out as odd somewhat hampered by all the movie monsters in them. “One of them had nicer clothes than the others,” he says finally.”

There’s the sound of scuffling on the other end of the call along with a quiet argument over who has to stick their hands in the corpse’s pants. _“Here, Brian Jenkins,”_ Malia announces.

Jordan walks over to the computer and leans down to type in the information. “Date of birth?”

_“07/19/1948.”_

“There’s only one person in Beacon County with that name and birthday and…hold, it looks like we have an open case file on him. Missing Persons.”

“What?” the Sheriff demands sharply. “When was the report filed?”

Jordan pulls it up on the screen, frowns in confusion as he reads it. “Two weeks ago.”

“By who?”

“You.”

The Sheriff pushes him aside to stare at the monitor in stark disbelief. “I don’t remember this.” He sighs. “Of course, I also don’t remember cutting the phone lines or giving my entire staff the night off.”

 _“Do have his address?”_ Scott asks quickly. _“Stiles could be there!”_

“Do you really think the Master would plan all this out then leave a clue like that behind?” Derek counters.

Deaton coughs politely. _“Who reported the man missing?”_

“His daughter,” the Sheriff replies. “But from the looks of things she never followed up on the investigation. Hang on, there’s a small business license here…Top Shelf Used Books.”

At least half a dozen people chime in with some variation of _hang on, books?_

 _“That’s not the place I took Stiles,”_ Malia protests.

Jordan squints at the screen looking for the address. “I know that place. It’s on Fifth just past that 50’s theme diner.”

 _“Okay, maybe that is where I took Stiles,”_ Malia allows. _“But it wasn’t called that.”_

“And what was it called?” the Sheriff asks patiently.

_“Torchburner? No. Torchbearer.”_

Derek lets out a string of words that should not be said in front of ladies, shapeshifter or not. “Hecate.”

 _“The Greek Goddess of Magic and The Moon and Stuff?”_ Scott asks bewildered. _“What? Stiles made me memorize_ everything _when we did the mythology unit in class because he said if we didn’t they’d turn out to all be real.”_

So much for that theory. “Hecate is real?” Jordan finds himself wondering if he should just put in for a transfer to a safer county. Kandahar is less insane than Beacon Hills.

“After a fashion,” Derek rumbles. “How did Stiles pick out _that_ book specifically?”

_“The skeevy shop girl gave it to him. I think her name was Helen?”_

The Sheriff groans tiredly. “As in _Helen of Troy_?”

 _“Whoa, seriously?”_ Scott blurts.

“It might be a pseudonym,” Jordan suggests drily.

“Her real name is Empousa,” Derek snarls, eye flashing blue. “According to legend she was created by Hecate over three thousand years ago.”

 _“Well that takes robbing the cradle to a fun new extreme,”_ someone (Danny? Jordan hasn’t ever really spoken with him) muses.

“So we’re saying she concocted this elaborate scheme to what, date Stiles?” the Sheriff asks dubiously.

 _“I suspect she intends to try and turn him,”_ Deaton pronounces dourly _. “Even Master Vampires usually end up with a mostly mindless walking corpse, but with Stiles’s history…”_

“The sacrifice,” The Sheriff murmurs, guilt weighing down his features so that he looks a decade older.

 _“He’s already died and been pulled back once before,”_ Deaton confirms. _“She’ll reopen that channel and use the power flowing through the currents to ensure her success. He’ll be a Servitor under her control but retain all his own knowledge and capabilities, substantially augmented”_

“The Nemeton. That’s where she’ll take him,” Derek says as he starts stripping off his clothes.

The Sheriff stares at him like he’s lost his mind. “Derek, why are you _getting undressed_?”

“He can shift into a full wolf,” Jordan explains as the werewolf drops to all fours, hands and feet becoming paws before they hit the floor.

“That’s it, I’m calling Eichen House to see if Peter needs a roommate,” the Sheriff jokes weakly. “And just what do you think you’re going to do if you get there first, Son? Let Stiles ride on your back as run like hell? What about Lydia and Mason?”

The Derek Wolf flicks his ears in a canine version of a shrug.

Jordan makes sure his all his gear is securely snapped into his belt. “Actually, Sir, I’ll probably get there first. Turns out I run very fast.”

“Go. Bring them back safe. You know how to get there?”

“I do,” Jordan confirms. He’d felt the Nemeton’s power from hundreds of miles away, enough to draw him to Beacon Hills in the first place, and once he knew to look for it that faint siren call in the back of his head lead him right to it. He’d wanted to _see_ the thing that changed his life so much, and was disappointed at the underwhelming sight of an old stump with a sapling growing out of it surrounded by giant potholes. “Let’s go.”

He opens the door, stepping out of the way so Derek can go through it first, but the werewolf doesn’t move.

Lydia is standing in the open doorway. Her eyes lock on Jordan’s.

She screams.


	7. Killed By Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double Update! It kind of ruins the cliffhanger, though.
> 
> By the way, my headcannon exorcism has been successful! Updates on this fic will come MWF and my Incubus!Stiles fic (now largely Stiles/Jordan with minor Sterek), the alive Hale family fic, and the new and improved version of Devil will update on TRS respectively. I love the irony that writing four different hings at once cuts my actual writing time in half because it gives me time to actually think about where things are going.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy your second chapter of the day!

“So that’s your grandmother,” Mason tries.

Stiles hums in acknowledgment without looking up from his laptop where he’s attempting to read, cross reference, and fact check the Bestiary and half a dozen websites about vampires that look at least semi-reliable. He’s overreacting and he knows it; there’s nothing to suggest that they’re dealing with anything but a single revenant that wandered into town on its own. On the other hand (and there always is one in his life; the chronically insane situations he keeps finding himself in typically start at Octopus and quickly devolve into Millipede) this business about necromancers controlling vampires for their own ends makes him nervous. It would be interesting to see his grandmother’s reaction if he told her about werewolf hunters working with La Resistance during World War II, assuming she doesn’t already know (it would not surprise him in the least if she had diagrams of supernatural troop deployments in major conflicts throughout history).

“You uh…wanna play video games or something?”

“What?”

“You just seem kind of…tense.”

Stiles tears his eyes away from the screen long enough to level a flat look at him before returning to his work. He likes the guy and all, and it’s nice not to be the only regular old human anymore, but even on a good he’s not exactly thrilled that they’ve managed to acquire Jackson & Danny: The Sequel. It’s like there’s some kind of bizarre cosmic rule that star lacrosse players _must_ come with a side order of Major Issues and a universally likable GBF to enable them (that Liam is doing double duty as Isaac: The Return in no way affects his opinion of the Scott-monopolizing pint sized ragewolf, nope). “Our friends are out looking for a bloodthirsty supercorpse that can rip apart plate steel with its bare hands. Should I be giddy?”

“What you should be doing is rethinking your wardrobe,” Lydia chides, carefully poking through the shirts hanging in his closet with a single manicured nail as though she’s afraid she might catch plaid with prolonged contact.

“For years I dreamed about the day you would finally acknowledge that I exist. Now you’re actually _in my bedroom_ and it’s nothing at all like I imagined,” he grumbles.

Mason makes a surprised sound. “I thought had a thing with Deputy Parrish. Or Derek. Or both.”

“Oh do take pictures,” Lydia purrs.

Stiles moves his laptop out of the way so he can thump his head on the desk. “Oh my _god_ , thanks for the images,” he groans.

“Amen,” Mason agrees enthusiastically.

“That’s _not_ what I meant!” He’s still not quite sure where exactly he falls on the good old Kinsey Scale, but that theoretical polyamorous nightmare is such a complicated mess the hot/not factor doesn’t even enter into it (not right now anyway; he’s more than slightly afraid it will haunt him in his sleep, potentially in way that could make interacting with certain supernosed individuals _very_ awkward).

“Oh? So you aren’t planning on asking Danny to help you with your bicuriosity as soon as his control is good enough for him not to maul you in a moment of passion?” Lydia asks sweetly.

Stiles is glad he’s face down on the desk, for their sake. It would be a shame if they were blinded by the brilliant flush of scarlet blazing across his face. “I’m taking the fifth,” he whines.

“ _Wow_. Too bad you just turned eighteen. We could have worked on that tension of yours while we wait,” Mason teases.

“ _La la la la la la la la_ ,” Stiles sings against the onslaught.

Lydia talks right over him. “If you promise to let Danny weed out your closet after you two finish, I’ll buy the condoms. XXL, right?”

“Huh, you’d never guess just looking at him,” Mason says thoughtfully.

“Can’t your banshee ears hear I’m about to _die of embarrassment_ over here?” Stiles whimpers.

“But you’re not about to drive yourself into a panic spiral anymore, are you?” Lydia counters triumphantly.

And that’s exactly the kind of evil genius that made Stiles both adore and fear her once upon a time. He picks his head up off the desk and spins around in his chair to face Mason. “So, video games?”

The strawberry blond she-devil waits until he and Mason are deeply embroiled in CoD to launch her next salvo. “How much do you think Ana knows about the supernatural?”

Fortunately Stiles has been thinking about that a lot, so it doesn’t knock him for a loop. “Ha! Headshot!”

“I was distracted,” Mason grumbles.

“Stiles?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “Grandma’s kind of Old World Eastern European. Like, she drinks a special tea that a Gypsy Seer taught her how to make. Apparently it protects against the Evil Eye or something. Huh, maybe I should get the recipe. If it’s legit it might block a vampire’s fascination.”

“It’s what?” Mason asks.

“Hypnosis, mind control, illusions, all that jazz,” Stiles explains.

“Like the mirror thing?”

“The Bestiary says that they do show up in mirrors,” Lydia corrects.

“I think that myth got started because old timey mirrors were made of polished silver, so you can see through their crap if you look at them in one. Of course, then you’d have your back turned to a hungry vampire, so all you’d get is a really nice view of it tearing your head off.”

“As fascinating as this diversion is,” Lydia cuts in, “Don’t you find it interesting that she speaks Archaic Latin?”

“Not really,” Stiles says with a shrug. “I’m pretty sure she was around when it was just called _Latin_.” He smirks at the fond-irritated snort this gets him. “She even used to tell me fairy tales in their original versions. You know, the ones too grim for even the Grimms.”

“Like in Into The Woods?” Mason asks.

“ _Waaaay_ darker than that. In her version of Little Red Riding Hood the wolf tries to follow up snacking on Grandmother by getting himself some action, so Red is all, “ _Oh no! The Big Bad Wolf is going to ravage me! Woe! Woe!_ ” Then as soon as he’s distracted by all her nubileness she strangles him to death with the strings of her red cape.” Ruining that story for him is a lesser member of Kate Argent’s laundry list of Unspeakable Crimes. He has a feeling she used it as a source of inspiration.

“I’m thirsty,” Lydia announces suddenly.

“There might be some of Grandma’s tea still in the back of the cabinet,” Stiles suggests tentatively.

“Thanks, but getting my stomach pumped isn’t on my To Do List,” Lydia replies primly before sashaying out of the room.

“She’s…something,” Mason says appreciatively.

“That she is,” Stiles agrees. “Why, you thinking about switching teams?” he asks slyly.

“Ha, no. I’m good with going after just one gender. Besides, she’d eat me alive.”

Stiles snorts in amused sympathy. “So…you like lacrosse players, huh?” He spends a few minutes trying unsuccessfully to coax the identity of Mason’s secret crush out of him before realizing something is off. “Is it just me or is Lydia taking a really long time to get that drink?”

Mason glances at the open door. “Maybe she decided to make the tea after all?”

“Hang here while I go check on her, okay?” Stiles asks, struggling to tamp down his rising sense of Impending Doom. He heads for the kitchen as fast as can without making too much noise; his grandmother is a notoriously light sleeper and not at all the sort of person you want to see cranky about being woken up in the middle of the night.

Lydia isn’t there.

Now edging towards panic he looks out the window, and sure enough, her car is _gone_. Stiles makes a half-hearted attempt to convince himself she was overcome with a sudden craving for Starbucks, but knows she wouldn’t just take off in the middle of a crisis without a word, which means she’s almost certainly out on one of her Banshee Death Walkabouts.

His phone buzzes in his pocket as if his thoughts had summoned The Call.

Dread piles cold and heavy in his gut as the first vestiges of a full blown panic attack set his hands to shaking. Stiles wonders hysterically if that Adult Store off the interstate carries cats of nine tails, because _this_ fuck up merits literal self-flagellation. He hung up on the pack like a petulant child and now…something may have happened to someone. “Man up, Stiles,” he snarls to himself under his breath, pulling out his phone, nearly deflating with relief when he sees his dad’s number on the screen. “Dad!” he gushes. “What happened? Is everybody okay?”

 _“I suppose that depends on you,”_ a vaguely familiar feminine voice replies smoothly.

“Where’s my dad?” he demands putting as much steel into his voice as he can muster, because he is beyond done with this Kidnap the Convenient Stilinski bullshit. He isn’t helpless, not by a long shot, and when it comes to his dad’s life the list of lines he won’t cross is very, very short.

The voice laughs. _“Oh I knew I was right about you,”_ she says, delighted. _“Your father is safe for now, but your friends are entertaining a dozen or so surprise guests on their little hunt. If you want them to make it through in one piece I suggest you follow my instructions exactly.”_

“Speak,” he snarls, trying to decide which of his dad’s spare handguns is going to fire the bullet that kills whoever-the-fuck he’s talking to.

 _“Get in your Jeep and drive to the abandoned gas station on Elm. You can come armed if you like, but leave your phone. Oh, and don’t worry about your friend upstairs. I’ve already taken care of him.”_ She hangs up.

Stiles races back up the stairs to find his window open and Mason gone. “I _really_ should have made that tea,” he tells the empty room. The vampire or necromancer or whatever has him by the balls and he _hates_ it, but has no choice, not after Lydia’s disappearance. He decides to go with the Colt 1911 and the baseball bat he got for his birthday. The latter won’t be much use as a stake, but he figures pounding a vampire’s skull into slurry will work just as well in the end, along with being wonderfully cathartic. He gets the gun out of the lockbox, leaves a note saying he’s gone to Scott’s in case his grandmother wakes up before they get back and wonders where the hell everyone is, and leaves, using the jar of mountain ash they keep stashed in the closet by the front door to seal the house behind him.

 

***

 

The derelict gas station is the perfect eerie backdrop for a midnight standoff with insidious forces, so Stiles is a little disappointed when all he finds is a car idling in the parking lot. He perks up a bit when he realizes it’s a black ’67 Chevy Impala, but sadly the Winchesters are not inside it, being fictional characters and all. The driver’s side door is open, inviting. Stiles creeps up to it gun and bat in hand. He knows he must look beyond ridiculous as darts level with car, barrel trained on the interior.

It’s empty.

And there’s a big red bow attached to the steering wheel.

“Okay…what the fuck is this supposed to be?” Stiles wonders aloud.

The radio crackles to life and he nearly shoots it out of surprise. _“It’s a gift. Happy Birthday, Dháirbher,”_ the voice says.

Stiles is at a complete and utter loss, left wondering if this is all just an elaborate birthday prank from the pack, or if he’s on Scare Tactics. Guest villains giving him vintage automobiles? Not exactly in his playbook. At the same time he’s afraid, because the voice knows his real name, knows the make model and year of his fanboy dream car, apparently knows _him_. “Who _are_ you?”

 _“I’d like to be your friend,”_ she replies.

Stiles shudders at the way her voice caresses the word “friend”. “And I’m supposed to just get in and follow the directions from The GPS of Evil?”

_“Yes, and you should hurry. Your friends aren’t doing very well I’m afraid.”_

“You know I’m going to shoot you, right?”

 _“I would be disappointed if you didn’t at least try.”_ The radio starts playing The House of the Rising Sun.

“Neat trick,” Stiles mutters sullenly.

He gets in the car.

 _“Proceed three-point-four miles down Elm and turn right onto County Road 28,”_ the voice says, imitating the mellow robotic tone of a GPS system.

Stiles puts the car in gear and drives. At first he goes as slow as he can get away with without being pulled over for disrupting traffic in an attempt to stall for time, but soon the music cuts off, replaced by the not-quite human sounds of a pack of werewolves in extreme physical agony. “Alright!” he yells desperately, accelerating.

The directions lead him to an unremarkable-looking piece of roadside on the highway that borders the preserve, but Stiles knows this place. He crashed his Jeep into a tree not far from here after all. “Okay, so now what?” he asks, hoping like hell he’s not headed where he thinks he is.

There’s no reply, which is answer enough.

Stiles gets out of the car (his car? What’s the etiquette on massively inappropriate gifts from supernatural stalkers anyway?) and sets off into the woods at a jog. He’d hoped in vain to never have to lay eyes on the Nemeton again, but all too soon he stumbles into the clearing that surrounds it. It’s amazing that a twelve foot sapling sticking up from the cracks of an old stump can seem so sinister.

The girl from the bookstore is waiting for him.

“Seriously? _You_?”

“Surprised?” she asks sounding honestly curious.

The girl looks different, somehow. The change is subtle, skin gleaming just a little too brightly in the moonlight, the vibrant energy she exuded in the bookstore still present but less obvious and somehow more wild at the same time. Several things click into place. “Silver; it blocks your powers just like electricity blocks a werewolf’s, because Hecate cursed you just like Zeus cursed Lycoan.”

The laughter that bubbles up from her throat is musical, enchanting, and it makes his head swim a little. “Don’t believe everything you read, but I suppose that’s as good an explanation as any.”

Stiles swallows nervously, this isn’t the first time he’s gone into a situation with cold-blooded murder in mind, but apparently that whole It Gets Easier chestnut is a giant crock, because his hands are shaking so badly he’s not sure his gun will be much use. “I believe we had an agreement,” he says, fingers tightening on the grip.

Helen’s mouth quirks up in an indulgent smirk. “By all means.”

He raises the gun, only it’s not a gun anymore, it’s a diamondback rattlesnake. The unmanly shriek he lets out as he hurls the hissing venomous reptile away is only about the fourth most embarrassing moment of the night so far. What the hell is his life? “So…is this the part where you offer me Eternal Life?” he quips, affecting a hideous Transylvanian accent on the last two words.

“It’s not nice to mock,” she fake-pouts. “I’m not interested in making another mindless mouth to feed or another son that will never replace the one I lost.” A shadow of ancient grief passes over her face. It only lingers for a moment before vanishing, replaced a fey twinkling in her eyes. “I’m not just offering you life; I’m offering you a family, a real one. You can even keep your pack. Our children will need good pets.”

Stiles stares at her slack-jawed, because the woman is quite clearly bug fucking _nuts_. “Um, what!?” he squeaks. “Couldn’t we start off with coffee or something and see how it goes?”

“I would have preferred that, yes,” she admits. “But I’m afraid the bargain I made for you comes with a clock.”

“Bargain? _What_ bargain?” Stiles sputters. “Oh, and while we’re at it. Why _me_?”

“All in good time,” Helen says in a soothing voice that steals the nervous tension from his limbs.

A howl pierces the night, a hunting call, long and bloodthirsty and _close_.

“Derek,” Stiles says excitedly. Forget Danny, he’s going to give the Sour Wolf a great big kiss if he gets him out of this.

Helen sighs, shattering that pleasant delusion. “Speaking of time…”

The world around him turns into a blur, inertia yanking at his equilibrium, and suddenly he’s standing atop the Stump with the vampire pressed up against him. This close he can feel the warmth in her breath, the heat rising off her skin. “You…you’re alive,” he blurts.

“Very,” she says smiling up at him. “And you will be too. Don’t worry; I’ll understand if it takes you a few decades to forgive me for doing this so abruptly.”

For a terrible moment Stiles hesitates. Helen is a Master Vampire; her slip about her lost son ties directly back to the female vengeance vibe that permeates the old myths, and she’s offering to make him one too ( _offering_ being something of a euphemism). He’d be powerful, virtually unkillable, and part of him really likes that idea. His sanity retaliates by pointing out that the monster in front of him killed over a dozen people just to arrange this meeting. In the end she’s no more human or less hungry than the nogitsune.

Then she turns the full power of her gaze on him and all of his objections melt into warm goo and dribble out his ears.

“Just one kiss,” she whispers, pulling his head down so she can press their lips together.

 _Kiss_ is a comically inadequate word to describe the experience. Stiles can feel her over every inch of skin, in his bones, hell, even his teeth are singing with it. The sheer want for him she radiates overrides all sense of self-preservation and he gives it to her, everything he has, even as cold creeps into his core, gripping his heart, slowing it inexorably.

_Fight it, Stiles!_

The scream is barely an echoed whisper deep within his head, but it jolts something loose in him.

_The others are almost there. You just have to hang on!_

It hurts, pulling away from Helen and the all-consuming sweetness she’s pushing on him, but he forces himself away from her, a sob tearing its way out of his chest.

“Remarkable,” she whispers staring at him fondly.

Stiles sinks to his knees, the strength gone out of his body. “Damn straight,” he spits, grabbing hold of impotent rage and turning it into one last burst of energy. The bat is still clenched in his hand, so he aims a swing at her knee, conveniently level with his shoulders.

Helen’s mightily unimpressed look transforms into one of anger and pain as the connects with a crunching sound. She wrenches it out of his grip. “Wood from the World Tree. My, you are a clever one, aren’t you?”

Sneaky, sneaky Sour Wolf. Stiles might not stop with just a kiss when he’s Derek.

“Oh dear, we have a party crasher,” Helen murmurs. “I meant what I said about letting you keep your pack but I’m afraid _this one_ will have to go.”

Stiles slumps down onto his side, unable to so much his turn his head, which leaves him with no choice but to watch what happens next.

Parrish steps out of the trees, gun raised. “Let him go, Empousa,” he demands.

The ancient vampire moves like a shadow, dodging the first shot, the second, the third. Before Parrish get off a fourth she slips behind him and slams the bat into the back of his head, the impact hurling him halfway to Nemeton, shards of oak flying everywhere.

Stiles tires to drag himself over to the Deputy even though he knows there’s no point. The man’s head is misshapen and lolling at an unnatural angle, and though his chest is still rising and falling in tiny, reflexive breaths, it’s already too late.

Jordan is _dead_.

Stiles suppresses a vicious smile, because he has a plan.

He covers the forearm-length shard of bat with his sleeve, a wonderfully familiar snarl ringing in his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> With Stiles fading fast and Lydia's prediction come horrifically true, Derek faces a terrible choice that will change everything forever no matter what he decides.


	8. Conversations With Dead People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my time zone this is on schedule. It got a wee bit long on me.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING FOR NON-GRAPHIC REFERENCES TO RAPE, MURDER, AND CHILD DEATH.
> 
> Beyond that be prepared fro some whacky Nemeton surrealism and the plot thickening.
> 
> Also an unexpected guest character.

Running headlong towards a nigh invincible foe in a mostly-likely-vain attempt to save the life of Stiles Stilinski is hardly a new experience for Derek, but this is the first time he’s done it in his fur, and that makes all the difference. With the moon only two days past full power is surging through him, the instinct to rip and tear until the threat to his pack and territory is nothing but a pile of bloody meat welling up into an all consuming need that pulls him through the preserve at a speed no mortal animal could come close to matching.

And yet Parrish’s lead on him is still growing steadily.

This combined with the way the Master Vampire’s baleful influence had retreated from the Deputy’s touch is enough to put a Theory into Derek’s head that ties back to a number of ancient tales from Eastern Europe. The irony that it was the presence of a Hunter from that region that pulled those stories to the forefront of his mind is not lost on him. He calls to his pack, and the chorus of answering howls that spring up in his wake send a dark, wild thrill through him. It’s been too long since he’s had this, the rush of anticipation that precedes the felling of a worthy prey, reveling in it with his brothers and sisters without restraint or reservation. It isn’t about the violence of it, but the indescribable feeling of connectedness with the pack and within himself.

When he hears Parrish’s heartbeat approach two others up ahead his own races in response.

“Oh dear, we have a party crasher,” the Master Vampire murmurs. “I meant what I said about letting you keep your pack but I’m afraid _this one_ will have to go.”

Derek can’t call out with words, and a howl risks startling or distracting the Deputy. He puts on a last desperate burst of speed.

Too late.

“Let him go, Empousa.”

The cracking detonation that follows is painfully loud, but not so much so as to obscure the wet snapping sound of breaking bone or the muffled thump of body thrown to the ground.

Derek snarls as he steps forward into the clearing at Nemeton, eyes darting between Parrish’s broken body and the Dead Vampire Walking that killed him.

“Ohhh, puppy,” she coos. “Be a good boy and sit until my husband wakes.”

Changing back would take too long and leave him vulnerable besides, so Derek settles on cursing at her in Wolf. _“Back off you bloodsucking bitch.”_

As it turns out a translation isn’t needed.

“Such language,” Empousa chided clucking her tongue reproachfully. “I would have thought someone of Talia Hale’s reputation would have raised her son better than that. _Oh_ , oops.”

Way. Too. Far. _“I’m going to tear your throat out. With my teeth.”_

The vampire draws herself up into regal bearing, power radiating out from her. Derek’s Eyes can’t be fooled by her illusions, not in this form, but a silver aura shines around her nonetheless. “Cub, I was a High Priestess of the Triple Goddess when the Kingdom of Arcadia was nothing but a collection of stone hovels. I commanded the creatures of the Wild and the Moon when Western Civilization was still a pipe dream. The sons of Lycoan do not scare me.”

As villainous speeches go it’s a good one, but she’s _talking_ instead of _fighting_ , and Derek isn’t convinced. _“I can fix that.”_

“Why?” she asks with appears to be genuine confusion. “Stiles is already mine. Come with us, bring your Alpha, your pack. You are a True Wolf with centuries ahead of you. Under my protection you would want for nothing. Do you yet desire revenge? I will wipe the Old Families of the face of the earth. Just concede to me and you will finally know peace.”

The offer is real, that much is obvious, and most people would be sorely tempted if not capitulate on the spot.

Derek isn’t one of them.

_“Go fuck yourself.”_

Her indulgent smile fades, leaving only an expressionless mask behind. “Obedience training it is then,” she sighs.

Both of them spring forward in the same instant, clashing, leaping clear, and coming together again over and over at a speed the human eye would barely be able to track. She fights like a mountain lion, a killer that stalks its prey, taking it in ambush, but Derek has hunted such predators before and that experience gives him the edge he needs to hold out. He scores a few hits with his teeth. Unlike her undead progeny the living vampire’s blood is rich and red and singing with life, with magic. Each taste seems to bolster his strength as they fight.

But it’s not enough.

His attacks aren’t leaving any marks that last past the time necessary to see them before they heal, and the titanic strength backing her blows leaves hairline fractures with every contact.

He meets her one final time.

Empousa cracks his shoulder blade, stomps on one of his hind legs, crushing it, and finishes with a savage hammer blow to his back just in front of his hindquarters, breaking it. “Lie down. Good boy.”

Derek tries to growl out a witty retort but only manages a wet, chuffing sound of wolf-laughter.

The pack has arrived.

His vicious elation last a whopping five seconds before it becomes clear just how much Empousa had held back with him.

Kira goes down almost immediately under a backhanded blow that sends her bouncing twenty feet across the barren earth, her sword falling to the ground with a musical clang.

Danny and Liam get their heads cracked together and fall unconscious into a tangle of limbs.

Malia is simply thrown bodily off into forest without an easily perceptible trajectory.

And Scott…Scott doesn’t fare much better. Not until Empousa makes the mistake of stopping to gloat after she snaps one of his thighs like a twig.

“Such loyalty,” the vampire purrs. “I’ll have use for it soon. Stiles is going to need some convincing after all.” She hops up onto the stump and leans down to rub a hand over Stiles’s hair lovingly.

Scott has come a long way in learning what it means to be a wolf, to be an _Alpha_ without becoming a monster, but the sight of her claiming his best friend as Stiles’s, his _brother’s_ heart begins to stutter and slow, shatters the restraints that had held him in check for so long. Cloth explodes like confetti as the True Alpha finally makes its debut.

Empousa stares at the towering hulk of muscle and black fur and laughs. “Magnificent!”

The fight that ensues is worthy of epic poetry for all that the outcome is predetermined. Dark power wraps around Scott’s form, wild and bloodthirsty, so strong it almost seems to force back the silver light surrounding his foe, a throwback to the ancient who king who dared defy the Gods themselves. For a moment Derek feels an exultant surge of pride. This is his Alpha, but a tiny movement atop the stump catches his eye and the fight fades from his focus into insignificance.

Stiles is alive, and moving, and _looking right at him_. “P H O E N I X,” the young man fingerspells, eyes jerking over to Parrish’s body then to a spot on the ground a few feet to Derek’s left.

He looks and sees the Deputy’s side arm lying in the dirt; listens and hears the faint, uneven beat of the man’s heart laboring away reflexively and independently even though his central nervous system has been reduced to pudding. Stiles raises his other arm a fraction of an inch, enough to reveal the thick sliver of wood hidden under it.

Derek instantly grasps he plan, despairs of its utter, reckless insanity, and jerks his head in understanding. The only thing that can save them now is something so out of left field, so completely demented that even a creature as old and wily as Empousa won’t see it coming. In other words a _Stiles Plan_. Shifting back into human form with so many of his bones broken is the most excruciating thing Derek has ever experienced, but he manages it because he has no other choice, drags himself over the ground until he can reach out and grab the gun. If this works he’s going to send Braeden a fruit basket, assuming she actually stays in one place long enough during her renewed Melvillian quest for the Desert Wolf for such a thing to actually find her. While he’s at it he might have to compliment Stiles for not being a complete idiot for a change, for figuring it out.

Silver to harm the Children of the Moon.

Wood from the eternal tree to kill that which does not die.

The Fire of Rebirth to burn those born again.

He waits for his moment, for Empousa and Scott to drift between Parrish’s body and the Nemeton, and takes aim. His still-healing shoulder makes it impossible to hold the weapon steady, arm twitching and jerking from the pain. Suddenly he steadies, as though phantom hands reached out to steady his, to help move him into the perfect position.

He pulls the trigger.

The bullet hits Parrish in the chest, just left of the breastbone.

A swirling column of golden-edged flame rises up into the sky as an unearthly avian shriek trills through the air.

Scott crouches down in instinctive fear.

Empousa throws her arms up over her frightened face to shield herself from the magical blaze.

And Stiles lurches to his feet, drives the shard of oakwood into her back with a berserker cry, pulls her down with him as he falls back onto the stump.

Blood erupts from the Master Vampire’s mouth as she struggles weakly, her strength waning as the Nemeton drinks her in.

“The head, Scott!” Stiles coughs.

The Alpha leaps up onto the stump and grabs Empousa’s head in both of his massive clawed hands, twists sharply, and tears it off her neck with a roar of triumph.

Stiles smiles, the expression gruesome under his darkly shadowed eyes and gaunt face. “Sorry, babe. But I’m asking for a divorce.” He beams at his largely unconscious audience for a moment before his eyes roll back in his head and he collapses. Pale. Still.

Not _dead_.

Derek scrambles to his feet, wounds healing in a rush as the power that kept them open is consumed by the earth, collecting the massively confused and quite naked Parrish on his way to the stump. He bares his throat in submission to the Alpha panicking over Stiles’s body. “Fuck, she’s already drained him.”

Parrish pushes down Stiles’s collar. “There’s no bite marks.”

Alpha Scott whines plaintively, not shifting back because he likely hasn’t figured out _how_ yet.

Derek shakes his head in sharp negation. “Powerful vampires can drain a man dry with a caress.” He takes a deep breath, fortifying herself for the enormity of what he’s about to attempt. “I can save him. I can bring him back.”

“As _what_?” Parrish snaps.

“As Stiles. Listen, I need you to keep his heart beating until I can get him to finish the Rite.”

“How!?”

Derek snarls in frustration. “Did you miss the part where you exploded and were reborn in flame? You’re a phoenix, you can give life with a touch. So suck it up, lays hands on him, and Keep. Him. Alive.”

Parrish stares at him for painfully long moment, then nods. “Okay.”

Derek scoots closer to the stump, pulls Stiles across his lap (nudity isn’t as big a deal for werewolves as it is for humans, but what he wouldn’t give for a boxers right now), and slices a claw across one of the younger man’s palms. A mere sluggish trickle wells up, a very bad sign. “If this doesn’t work or I don’t come back you need to take care of him before he wakes up. It’s what he would want.”

Parrish blanches.

Scott snarls.

Derek ignores them both, slaps Stiles’s bleeding hand down on the stump, and shoves his claws into the back of the young man’s neck.

 

***

 

He’s heard a description of this place, “The White Room”, has experienced a form of it himself, but the sheer _vastness_ of it sets his fingers to trembling. This is no place for the living, but unfortunately he has some dead and almost dead people to talk to.

“Stiles!” he yells spinning in place.

“Shut it, Sour wolf. I’m trying to find my inner enlightenment before I move on or whatever.”

Stiles is seated lotus style atop the stump of the Nemeton, fingers in the OK position.

Derek doesn’t have time for this. He grabs him by the arm and hauls him upright snarling, “You think you’re getting out of this that easy you little shit?”

“ _Ow ow ow!_ ” Stiles yelps swatting at him. “What the fuck, dude?”

“Don’t call me dude,” Derek growls. “Now, you’re going to use the power contained in the Nemeton to come back or I swear to God I will bind you to me and spend the rest of my days listening to Country Music until your spirit begs for mercy.” He has no idea if he can actually pull that off; Peter wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the mystical secrets before his untimely (see: very, very late) incarceration, but it makes a nice threat.

Stiles gulps, clearly convinced. “You are such and asshole! I did my homework. Even if I can pull it off what makes you think I want to be a bloodsucking supervillain.”

“Right, because you never fantasized about being Magneto when you were a kid,” Derek snarks. “This isn’t about you. There are people that need you to _be there_ , so get the fuck over yourself and for once and do something to pay back everyone that keeps risking their lives to save your sorry ass!”

Stiles’s mulish expression persists for a scant second before it shatters. If the guy has one reliably pushable button it’s guilt, and Derek doesn’t have time for anything more tactful. “You _asshole_. Fine.” He takes a shaky breath. “So what now O Oneness?”

“Jennifer died on the Nemeton,” Derek replies. “Finish the five-fold knot and you might have enough power to leave and come back as yourself.” He puts as much confidence into the statement as he can muster, because in truth it barely qualifies as a _guess_.

“And how do I do that, exactly?”

Derek shrugs in feigned indifference. “This is your Spirit Walk. Take us where you need to go.”

A door obligingly materializes before them.

“Not very original,” Derek remarks.

“Shut it, Gonzo the Great,” Stiles snaps. “If I’m going to face the fucking Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future I get to embrace the classics.”

“Well, lead on then.”

They go through the door.

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn’t the set of 300,” Stiles comments looking around the airy villa.

Derek takes in the rough quarried stone and handmade everything. “ _You_ brought up the past,” he accused.

“And your future if you’re not careful,” Empousa says from behind them.

The shift _doesn’t come_ when Derek tries to reach for it, but he can tell a beat later that it isn’t necessary. The Master Vampire appears as a shimmering mirage, just an echo, a remnant of her personality retained as her essence was bound by the Nemeton.

“Yes, you understand,” she says with a soft smile that clashes with the harsh expressions he’s seen on her previously.

“You. Again,” Stiles says flatly. “Why don’t the people I kill ever stay dead?”

“I’m only here to show and warn you,” Empousa replies, unaffected by his tone. “I don’t regret my actions. I have lived, more thoroughly than you can imagine, and I will help you avoid my mistakes if I can.”

“What mistakes?” Stiles asks before Derek can stop him.

“Observe.”

The scene shimmers. A human Empousa appears in intense conversation with a man barely over her height. She looks different, chestnut haired and olive skinned with warm brown eyes, though the sense of power remains. She’s also quite obviously terrified.

Down on the sandy shore below the villa there’s a ship docked, a line of torch-wielding men wending their way up the slope towards the house. They watch, pulled along helplessly as the woman hurries down a hall into a room, pull a towheaded boy about three years old from his bed and take him to a set of elaborately worked bronze doors that open to reveal enclosed courtyard, the space dominated by a marble altar topped by a life-size statue of young woman wearing a silver starburst in her hair, an ancient gnarled yew behind, its roots gripping the plinths.

“It’s a Nemeton,” Derek murmurs.

“That is the Celtic word for it,” Empousa confirms with a nod.

Her human double kneels before the altar in frantic praying, her terrified boy crying and squirming in your arms.

“You probably don’t need want to see what comes next.” Empousa waves a hand and the scene changes, resolving into the temple’s antechamber.

The brigands are busy sorting through their loot when the metal doors rip free from the masonry against the swing of their hinges, splattering two of them like insects. The newborn vampire steps out onto the doors, her clothing torn and bloodstained in a way that leaves no doubt what the en did to her before she “died”. Her feet strike with resounding booms, the torchlight reflecting on her bleached skin makes her bare feet appear to made of bronze.

One of the invaders runs.

The others die screaming.

“Enough,” Stiles pleads softly.

The scene fades into indistinct mist.

“Don’t repeat my mistakes,” Empousa admonishes. “I didn’t use what I had to protect my family, until all the love I had for them was twisted into the desire for revenge. For more than three thousand years I kept recreating the monsters that destroyed my life in an attempt to regain what I lost.” She stands on tiptoe to place a kiss on Stile’s cheek. “You have already proven yourself a true Guardian. Promise me. Promise you won’t hesitate to protect those you love no matter the cost.”

Derek almost intervenes, stopping at the last instant. It may not be right, but he can’t bring himself to counsel against such a course, not after everything he’s lost.

“I promise,” Stiles swears.

Empousa nods, her vampire visage fading until only the woman, Helen, remains. “Thank you.” The mist swirling around them resolves into a daylight variation of the earlier scene, her husband and son running down a columned hallway and laughing. “Here will I linger. It is more than I ever thought I would find. May the Goddess watch over you both. The Next will be all too glad to help you, but you know who you will face last?”

Stiles gulps, nods.

She takes a deep breath, face screwing up in sudden panic. “Beacon Hills is doomed! She…”

The world around them boils with sound and color, and Derek and Stiles are back in the White Room.

“Good thing that wasn’t too disturbing,” Stiles mutters running his hands through his hair until it sticks up in demented spikes.

“Disturbing” is not how Derek would put it, more like “foreboding” or “fucking terrifying” but he doesn’t _time_ for wordplay. The minutes may not be flowing by at the usual rate in this place where the mind trumps paltry things like space-time, but he can feel Stiles weakening in the world without. “Hurry,” he hisses. “We…” A sliding door of corrugated metal appears. “Fuck.”

“Oh yeah,” Stiles agrees. He touches it and the scene shifts again, leaving them standing in the middle of the old distillery.

“You kept me waiting,” a dozen voices say at once as a circle of men and women appear around them. Among them is Jennifer, and with each step the ring of dead takes closer her position shifts, jumping from one slot to the next.

“Hi Ms. Blake!” Stiles greets brightly. “So about m grade on that last quiz before you got what was coming to you…”

“Oh you definitely get an A+, Stiles,” She says before turning a flirtatious look on Derek. “I did warn you.”

Derek nods. “I’m listening now.”

Jennifer grins. For a moment her other face appears transposed over her pleasant features. “And I won’t keep from hearing.”

“Can we please dispense with the creepy and just move onto the part where you give us what we need?” Stiles asks snippily.

“I have no intention of keeping you here with me,” she replies. “ _You_ will bring about what I worked for for so long. It’s an easy sacrifice to make.”

Derek barely manages to restrain himself when she suddenly rushes forward and grabs Stiles’s face. He’d had a sense of something moving when Empousa kissed Stiles but _this_ is like an earthquake. They don’t return to the White Room. Instead their surroundings resolve into a perfectly innocuous classroom in Beacon Hills High, cheery morning sunlight streaming in through the wall of windows.

From Stile’s reaction you’d think it was the tenth level of hell. “Oh fuck _no_.”

“This is pointless, you know?” a voice asks.

Derek looks over and sees another Stiles perched on top of one of the desks. This one looks younger, about the same age as when he and Derek met (for the second time, anyway; neither of them were particularly interested in discussing the first). The eyes and the hard smirk are wrong though, belong to the nogitsune when it trounced Derek in his own loft. “I thought we got rid of you.”

“Uh oh, NegaStiles,” Stiles quips.

Not-Stiles’s smirk grows a shade more malicious. “Jokes, very distracting.” He hops off the desk, slinking forward with predatory grace. “It’s so nice to have a chance to talk with without Bandages running interference.”

Stiles gulps. “I have nothing to say to _you_.”

Derek is…confused.

Not-Stiles notices. “Oh aren’t you adorable,” it coos. “We heard everything, you know? Peter told you about the fox, that it wasn’t human. What you and the others saw, what you fought; that was all me. _Us_.”

“Shut up,” Stiles spits eyes half-crazed. “I’m not you.”

“Don’t listen to…yourself,” Derek advises. He may be an undergraduate level expert in myths and legends but this is a little too abstract for his taste.

Not-Stiles grins wickedly. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Stop,” Stiles snarls looking as terrifying in his anger as Derek had ever seen.

Not-Stiles pouts. “But the Sour Wolf has a right to know, doesn’t he? Every night for weeks I brought you here, showed the power we could have if you’d just accept me. Eventually I got a better offer.”

Derek looks between the two of them. “Stiles banish it, you’ve done it before.”

Not-Stiles throws back his head and laughs. “Silly puppy, my boring half kicked out the fox but I was here long before.” It gestures around itself broadly. “The sacrifice gave me power but I was born in this moment, the first time we committed murder.”

Stiles is shaking, sweating, and it’s only partly from the confrontation. They’re almost out of time. “He…no one _died_.”

Not-Stiles sidled closer to Derek. “We’ve had some _very_ naughty fantasies about you, but he represses them, the prude.”

Derek shrugged. “He’s seventeen.” Also, if he flipped out every time someone who saw imagined them in a compromising position he wouldn’t have time for anything else. There are _reasons_ he rarely goes out during the day.

“Derek…” Stiles whispers desperately.

Not-Stiles continues overtop him. “This,” he says spreading his arms. “Is first period the morning after Kate captured you. Specifically, this is when Scott complained about losing his phone and Stiles realized you took it and why.”

Derek’s gaze snaps to Stiles who flinches away like he expects to be hit. And it is tempting, but not for the reasons the young man probably thinks. If Stiles had been a wolf at the time then yes, it would have been an unforgivable transgression (in theory at any rate, Derek has proven more than once that his willingness to forgive is even more dangerous than his tendency to fall for beautiful domineering psychopaths), but the kid was human, and fighting for his family, his _pack_ , something Derek understands implicitly. He gives Stiles a tired look and says, “Can we get on with this already?”

Stiles stares back at him dumbfounded by the lack of recriminations.

Not-Stiles blurs towards his twin, hands outstretched.

There’s a flash of steel, a meaty thwunk, amd the doppelganger folds down to the floor, a dagger sticking out of the back of his neck precisely where the spine meets the skull. A Chinese Ring Dagger to be precise.”

“Allison!” Stiles cries rushing forward to pull the Huntress into a desperate hug.

Derek gapes slack-jawed for a moment while they embrace before finding his tongue. “You helped me make the shot. Why?”

Allison releases Stiles and faces Derek with a sad smile. “What happened to my mom wasn’t your fault. I know that now. Besides, I was needed and wouldn’t have walked away from the summoning even if I could have.”

Stiles blinks at her. “The _what_?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says dismissively (Derek in no way believes her, wonders what exactly Ana Stilinski has been doing while the rest of them have been chasing their tails). “You need one last Guardian to finish the ritual. I’m your girl.”

Derek finally manages to get his vocal chords working again. “But that will bind you here, to Stiles, which means possibly _forever_.”

“As if I’d let Stiles and Scott go unsupervised. Really, I’m amazed they’ve lasted this long.”

“Hey!” Stiles bleats.

Allison’s face sobers. “Go on, you’re a good person, Stiles. We protect those who cannot protect themselves,” she intones. “To do that you have to claim everything inside yourself as your own, even the Dark parts.”

Stiles nods jerkily, tears running down his face. “I get it. And I’m sorry. What happened to you…”

She slaps him lightly across the face. “Was not your fault. Do it.” She turns to face Derek while Stiles kneels next to the personification of his inner darkness. “I need you to carry a message for me.

“Yes,” Derek agrees instantly. She’d died heroically trying to save his pack, which balanced their account as far as he was concerned. Allison hadn’t set the Alphas on his Betas once they left him after all, _that_ was all on him.

Stiles whispers, “I’m not you, but I can use you without becoming you,” and Not-Stiles shimmers and disappears.

Allison tilts her head up to murmur in Derek’s ear. The words don’t make any sense to him, but the way his body, the air, even the ground beneath resonates with her voice makes him think they’re not _for_ him in any case.

“Go now!” she tells the both of the directly. “Don’t be afraid of what’s coming!”

The room fades before they can ask any questions, leaving them standing on the stump in the blank expanse of the White Room once more.

“Finish it!” Derek snaps as the ground begins to shake, the white tiles covering the floor walls and ceiling cracking and splintering.

Stiles gives him an aggravated shove. “Stop jostling my elbow _Stupid_ Wolf.” He chants a few familiar syllables of Gaelic under his breath.

A whole lot of nothing happens.

“Fuck! I knew it wouldn’t work. Peter’s files said that mortal magic alone isn’t enough to make a Master Vampire without a god or some such to supply the immortality.”

“You’re the one who took Peter’s laptop?” Derek growls.

“Not the time, dude!”

The rumbling stops.

Frost races across all visible surfaces ahead of a rolling, frigid darkness full of insatiable hunger that can be felt ahead of its approach.

“What the fuck?” Derek barks trying to shield Stiles from all directions at once.

“That’s it. You are out of here,” Stiles gibbers raising a hand.

Scott had told him what it was like when he’d been banished from Stiles’s head when the nogitsune was expelled, but failed to mention the massive, disorienting feeling of whiplash inside his head.

“Derek?”

“Derek!?”

He doesn’t have any attention to spare for dealing with Parrish and Scott, all of his attention focused on Stiles’s heart. It beats once, twice, then stops. For a terrible subjective eternity absolute silence reigns in the clearing about the Nemeton as though the hearts of the entire pack are standing still in memoriam.

 _THA-thump_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light Of Day...
> 
> Jordan stands vigil over Stiles while they wait to see what becomes of the young man, and tries to keep the Sheriff from killing anybody.


	9. Dead Man's Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late. It's always so annoying when real life gets in the way of fanfiction. Anywho, this chapter's kind of...whatever. I wanted to let y'all know though that once I hit chapter 21, the end of the first act so to speak, I will be going back for an actual editing sweep. I really want to polish chapter 8 in particular because it's a favorite. So, here we go with some aftermath, info dumping, and plot thickening...

Jordan is…confused. In a minute once the gibbering in the back of his head quiets down a whole host of other emotions will come storming through, but for the moment he’s mostly just at a loss. Also exhausted (fiery resurrections apparently take exactly as much out of a person as you’d think) and, because his night would not be complete otherwise, buck naked. At least the Sheriff isn’t there. Jordan has never been more grateful that his boss is one hundred percent human (in theory, anyway), not wanting to imagine what the man would do at the sight of his unconscious son squeezed in between two older men.

On the bright side he now knows what kind of supernatural creature he is, yay, and of course it’s a total mind fuck. A _phoenix_? He’ll probably wind up checking himself over for feathers thoroughly at some point, but last time he checked his anatomy was decidedly non-birdlike. Given the magnitude of that piece of misinformation he’s guessing that finding _any_ reliable accounts about others of his kind will be next to impossible. Derek clearly knows something, at least, but all of the werewolf’s attention is focused on Stiles at the moment so the interrogation will have to wait.

Speaking of the Birthday Boy, the time Derek was under with him may have been the most nerve-wracking handful of minutes in Jordan’s life and he’s used to working with live bombs. On the one hand he’s thrilled that his supernaturalness comes with something other claws and bloodlust, something useful, beneficial to others, but at the same time being able to feel Stiles’s life slipping away, subsumed by something vast and dark and powerful, and not being able to do anything about it other than Think Happy Thoughts for lack of a better description is a nightmarish torture, particularly for him as Doing Something in a crisis is literally his job. When the younger man’s heart actually stops, Jordan nearly vomits, but instead of being consumed by the corrupt, infecting blackness that last feeble flicker of life suddenly goes from firefly to supernova as something _Other_ gets involved. The darkness doesn’t recede, if anything it grows more hungry and absolute, but the light, that sense of _Life_ burn so brightly that the intervening abyss becomes meaningless by comparison.

But before Jordan can shout for joy or maybe just lie down for a well-deserved nap he notices something else. For all that the light burning away inside Stiles is searingly bright and vital (and thankfully _him_ in a way that Jordan doesn’t even attempt to wrap his head around) it’s also cold, frigid even, and has a wildness to it that makes the werewolves look like particularly well-trained golden retrievers by comparison. The saying _Opposites Attract_ comes to find as fire and leap towards one another. Jordan is reminded sharply of binary explosives and jerks his hands away from Stiles at the last instant. “What the hell _is_ that?” he asks no one in particular.

Scott (also naked, because not having an underage boy in the pile of nude men would keep the situation from reaching that final pinnacle of awkwardness, which would be _such_ a shame) all but tackles him in his haste. “What’s wrong!?” he demands desperately, face rippling weirdly. “Is Stiles going to be okay?”

“Is he ever?” Derek mutters philosophically, handing the young man’s limp form over to the Alpha. “We need to get him to Deaton.”

“But…he’ll still be _Stiles_ , right?”

“It’s him,” Jordan assures, marveling at the werewolf’s ironic wounded puppy expression. “What about the others?”

The rest of the pack come round easily enough, though some seem entranced by their own feet, looking down out of embarrassment or shame at getting trounced so thoroughly, ridiculous given their opponent.

“Can’t I tear off just _one_ of her limbs before we go?” Malia growls. “Scott got to do her head.”

Derek rolls his eyes and hefts Stiles’s body into his arms, which looks marginally less scandalous now that he’s appropriated a pair of boxer shorts (that they were borrowed from the unconscious man, jeans thoughtfully replaced afterward, tips the balance back a bit; redistributing the clothes so that Jordan wouldn’t have to arrest anyone, or himself for that matter, for public indecency took some doing). “If Stiles wakes up before we get him contained at the loft he’ll probably tear off yours. And eat them.”

“On second thought let’s do that,” Malia agrees quickly.

“Are we going to run there?” Danny asks still a little woozy-looking and clearly hoping for a _no_.

Kira frowns in confusion. “How did _Stiles_ get all the way out here?”

“Hang on,” Derek sighs, extracting a ring of keys from Stiles’s pocket after some awkward juggling. “He must have stolen a car so we couldn’t track him, the idiot.”

“If something’s happened to Mason because of him I’ll…” Liam starts furiously.

“ _Do nothing_ ,” Derek snaps, eyes flashing. “You hear his heart beating? That means he’s a Master Vampire. We were lucky as fuck to take down Empousa, and if you make Stiles perceive us as a threat before he anchors himself he’ll rip us into confetti.”

“Is it really going to be that bad?” Scott asks, worried. Though from the look on his face he’s more concerned about what slaughtering them all would to do Stiles than for himself.

Derek shrugs. “Imagine if you’d turned into an Alpha immediately after Peter bit you.”

“ _Oh_. A building made out of mountain ash would be good.”

They follow Stiles’s scent trail back to the highway bordering the preserve.”

“He stole a _nice_ car,” Liam observes running a hand enviously over the glossy black hood.

Jordan slides into the passenger seat and opens the glove box, looking for the vehicle registration, letting out a surprised grunt when he finds it that makes the werewolves look over at him sharply.

“What is it?” Scott asks.

“It’s his car. The title’s in his name and…” He digs out an envelope from State Farm. “It looks like the insurance for the next five years was paid up front.”

“Is there going to be Supernatural cosplay?” Danny asks uncomfortably. “Because if there is I might need to find another pack.”

Liam suddenly goes tense. “Everybody shut up.” He sniffs at the air, tilting his head like he’s trying to hear something faint. “Open the trunk!”

Jordan tosses Scott the keys, who barely manages to get it unlocked before Liam ruins Stiles’s paint job with his claws. They find mason curled up inside, asleep.

“He’s fine,” Derek huffs. “Might as well leave him in there for now.”

“What!?” Liam snarls.

“We can barely fit in the car as it is.”

“We’re not leaving him in the fucking _trunk_!”

The argument is cut off before it can gain momentum by the arrival of the Sheriff, who screeches to a halt on the side of road showering Malia and Danny with dirt and grass in the process. “Where’s my son!?” he demands jumping out of the cruiser without stopping to do more than put it in park.

Derek holds up the man in question. “Empousa drained him, but I made sure he’ll turn.”

“Thank God,” Stilinski sighs. “Scott, take Stiles for a second would you?”

The Alpha trades a nonplussed look with Derek but they make the exchange without comment.

The Sheriff sucker punches the Beta hard enough to knock even a werewolf to the ground. “You had no fucking right to make that decision for him. Thank you.”

“Sure, any time,” Derek drawls dripping sarcasm and a little trickle of blood from his mouth. “We need to hurry,” he says tone turning serious once more.

 

***

 

Deaton’s face is grave as he lets them into the exam room back at the animal clinic. “You were too late.”

“He’s still alive,” Jordan corrects. You wouldn’t think so to look at him, though. Stiles is actually looking worse by the minute, eyes deeply shadowed, face drawn and gaunt like a famine victim.

The vet shakes his head sadly. “I’m afraid there’s no recovering at this stage. Soon his heart will stop.”

“That already happened,” Scott chimes in.”

Deaton blinks. “Excuse me?”

“We were played,” Derek explains softly, a low simmer of anger bubbling under his words. “Someone wanted her turn Stiles into a Master. She said Beacon Hills was doomed, that there’s a “She” behind this.”

“I…I don’t…” Deaton stammers staring wide eyed at Stiles’s recumbent form. He clears his throat, face setting back into its usual pleasant masks as composure reasserts itself ruthlessly. “Kira, if you would call your mother? There are several species of vampiric creatures native to Japan. She might have encountered them at some point.”

“No problem,” Kira nods.

“Everyone step back please,” Deaton orders pulling a jar of mountain ash out of a cabinet. He tosses a handful into the air. It lands in a neat oval tight in around the table. A second enclosure joins the first, a foot wider with a six inch gap left open.

“Will mountain ash even hold him?” Scott wonders eyeing the barrier.

“I have no idea, but this will keep him from employing Powers against us, whatever those turn out to be.”

“He looks awful,” the Sheriff points out. “There has to be something I can do.”

“He’s hungry, starving,” Jordan tells him, tensing at the memory of the void. “Maybe he just needs blood.”

“We’ll need a bucket,” Derek says, smirking a little at the looks of shock it gets him. “If we mix it together it’s less likely he’ll fixate on one of us as prey.”

“Excellent idea,” Deaton agrees with a nod of approval. “A gallon of milk and ten pounds or so of ground pork would also be helpful.”

Several of the pack make gagging noises.

“Yes, let’s shame him about his biology from minute one,” Derek snarks acidly. “I’m sure that will help make the transition smoother for him.”

“I’ll see if my mom can swing by the store,” Kira says brightly into the abashed silence.

“And what exactly are we looking at in terms of that?” the Sheriff asks, face creased with worry and fear. “I know werewolves have a period of adjustment to go through.”

“I’m afraid there’s no way to be certain,” Deaton grimaces. “All vampire species share certain traits in common in how they’re created and behave, but it depends greatly on who and what was involved during the ritual. Was there anything at all that was distinctive?”

“ _Cold_ ,” Derek and Jordan say simultaneously.

“His temperature looks normal to me,” Scott protests looking him over with glowing eyes.

“You can see into the infrared” Jordan asks. Now _that_ is cool, not to mention useful.

“Kind of, I guess? Scott replies uncertainly. “I can see a lot of weird things when my eyes are shifted so it’s kind of confusing.”

Derek lets out a patient sigh. “We’ve talked about this, Scott. Your Eyes let you perceive supernatural energies.”

Scott sucks in a breath. “There’s something around his neck. Under his shirt. It’s…glowing?”

“Sheriff?” Deaton prompts.

Stilinski gives the vet a dry look but circles around so he can approach Stiles from above and behind his head, stepping over the ash lines with exaggerated caution. He slowly reaches in and hooks his finger on the chain of necklace, pulling until there’s enough slack to lift it off without getting his hands too close to the nascent vampire’s mouth.

“Huh, it stopped glowing when you took it off,” Scott observes.

Jordan doesn’t spare so much as a glance for the necklace, fixated on Doctor Deaton who out of nowhere the man is sweating, trembling like he’s going into shock. “You’ve seen that before,” he accuses.

The vet opens his mouth but all that comes out is a choked wheeze.

“Who was Stiles’s grandfather really?” Derek growls.

Deaton closes his eyes and replies in barely more than a whisper. “Dháirbher was the son and emissary of Kieran, the last Alpha of the Somhairle pack. The vaulknut was their sign before they left Norway and invaded Ireland in the fifth century. Eventually they adopted a local symbol with similar meaning, one the scion packs that branched off from them over the centuries still use to this day.

“Are you telling me son is _part werewolf_?” the Sheriff demands incredulously.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Derek replies shaking his head. “You either inherit it or you don’t. Kind of like druid magic,” he adds pointedly.

“You refused to teach Stiles,” Malia accuses.

Deaton takes a deep breath like he’s trying not vomit. “Dháirbher was my teacher, mine and my sister’s, along with Julia and her brother Nicholas. But he and Claudia both gave up their power just after Stiles was born. I don’t know why. What I do know is that they bound their magic within that necklace and sent it overseas for safe keeping.”

Jordan looks at the emotions warring across his boss’s face and can’t think of anything remotely helpful or reassuring to say. Every new Deputy is warned by others about bringing up the Sheriff’s wife, specifically to never do so. Finding out that she was a part of the secret supernatural world and never said anything must be one hell of a kick to the balls for the man that’s still grieving even after seven years. He can and does direct the discussion away to something less emotionally volatile. “Why would someone return it him now?” The vast amount of energy that came from somewhere Other and rushed into Stiles springs to mind. “Power,” Jordan says answering his own question. “The necklace is how they were able to…target him, isn’t it?” he proposes, struggling for an understandable way to couch supernatural mumbo jumbo in a way that makes any kind of sense.

“Perhaps,” Deaton allows.

“Is Stiles still in danger from whoever…arranged all this?” the Sheriff asks.

“No one knows exactly what happened to the Somhairle pack,” Derek explains. “Whatever it was killed all of them. Except their emissary apparently.”

Deaton nods. “Dháirbher was here mediating a dispute between the Moncrieff Pack and the Argents when it happened.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Derek spits.

“Do you know this pack?” Scott asks hopefully.

“I know the _Alpha_. We both do.”

“I know that name,” Jordan says, remembering. “I saw it on a lease agreement in one of files on the Druid Murders.

“You’ve got to be _kidding_ me,” the Sheriff groans pinching the bridge of his nose like he a migraine coming on.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” Deaton replies. “But the only person who might know more is Dháirbher’s best friend and your wife’s godfather.”

Derek lets out a ripsaw snarl. “ _Deucalion_.”

 

***

 

Noshiko arrives with the meat, milk, and a judgmental look around the time they finish up recapping The Alpha of Alphas’s brief reign of terror in Beacon Hills. “In nine hundred years I have never met someone who is so attractive to trouble,” she comments glaring at Stiles.

“That’s a hell of statement coming from a kitsune,” Derek drawls.

She gives him a small smile. “Indeed. As for Stiles’s feeding, I recommend simply throwing everything in one container and giving him the room. I put the milk and the pork in the engine compartment of my car to warm it on the drive over.” Noshiko looks around at the pack. “Where are the rest of you? I thought there were no other casualties.”

Scott fidgets under the weight of his girlfriend’s mother’s gaze. “Um…Liam, Mason, and Danny went to pick up Lydia and-and get a cake.”

“A cake,” she repeats flatly.

“It’s Stiles’s birthday twice today,” the Sheriff explains wryly. “Scott has decided bad puns are Plan B should the bucket of slop strategy fail to help Stiles get centered.”

“I…see.”

“I think it’s funny,” Kira says coming to her boyfriend’s aid.

“Are they getting _two_?” Jordan asks with mock interest.

“Oh that’s right!” Scott chuckles. “I guess it kind of is your birthday too, huh? Derek killed him,” he adds in response to the blank looks he gets from the Sheriff, Noshiko, and Deaton.

“We haven’t actually covered that part yet,” Jordan points out. Thus far everyone has been too distracted to even bring up the fact that most of the pack is still either half naked or dressed in festive veterinarian-themed scrubs.

Scott launches into a theatrical recounting of the fight with Empousa and Stiles’s plan to use Jordan’s resurrection as a distraction. “It was kind of awesome.”

“Yes, I’m always so disappointed when a party doesn’t end with my skull getting bashed in,” Jordan quips. “By the way, shouldn’t we be getting our blood drawn?”

“No time for the delicate approach I’m afraid,” Deaton says lugging in a ten gallon plastic tub that already has the absent pack members’ contribution sloshing thickly around inside it. “Scott.”

The Alpha uses his claws to make incisions across the large veins of their forearms. “Funny, I don’t remember them covering this during my training,” Jordan jokes watching the blood run down into the bucket.

“I’ll see what I can do about getting you a raise,” the Sheriff drawls in reply.

“There, that should be enough,” Deaton announces handing them each a roll of gauze to use until the Alpha-inflicted wounds can heal. He adds the meat and milk to tub of blood and proceeded to macerate it with a giant whisk (Jordan doesn’t ask, doesn’t want know).

“I’m gonna go wait for the others. Outside,” Scott coughs looking a little green.

“Good idea,” Derek agrees.

“We should tell the others to pick up some food on the way back,” Malia puts in, much less perturbed by the smell than the others.

Jordan’s stomach rumbles audibly at the suggestion. “Pizza?”

“How about we see how well this goes over first,” Deaton suggests mildly. “Blood begins to lose its mystical potency as soon as it leaves the body, which makes using blood bags impractical, so we may have to repeat this until Stiles can control himself well enough to feed without killing.”

Everyone but Jordan and the Sheriff flee the exam room rather than stay and observe. The vet puts the bucket down in the gap between the two mountain ash barriers and makes a sharp beckoning gesture. The inner ring opens, the dust swirling in miniature vortex that sweeps out settles into the outer one, closing it.

The reaction is instantaneous.

Stiles bolts upright, blinking in confusion. “Did I get knocked out _again_?”

“You got turned into a vampire,” Jordan replies bluntly.

“Pardon?” Stiles squeaks. Then his expression goes slightly slack, nostrils flaring. “What’s…” The neophyte vampire may not move as fast as Empousa had, but falls on the bucket of pinkish goo fangs first with far more than human speed.

“I think I will wait outside,” the Sheriff groans covering his eyes as son begins scooping up the contents with animalistic fervor.

“We can talk about that raise,” Jordan agrees.

Ten minutes go by before Stiles comes out of the back wearing scrubs but thankfully none of his dinner. By then the entire pack has gathered around a folding table set up in the waiting room. On top is a red and white birthday cake with a burning candle shaped like a zero. Originally it said Happy Birthday, but someone has thoughtfully used red sprinkles to take RE- onto that.

“ _Aww_ , you guys are the best,” Stiles says with an exaggerated sniffle. “Now, who wants to give me a Rebirthday Hug?” he asks spreading his arms wide and grinning hugely so his fangs are clearly visible.

Everyone in the room takes a long step backwards.

“Spoilsports.”

Jordan chuckles under his breath, but at the same time worries that this may be the last time any of them will be in a partying mood for the foreseeable future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> Stiles adjusts to life as a new vampire. By the end of the first day he's ready to bite someone, and not from hunger.


	10. Living Conditions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say 21 was the end of act 1? Actually that's act2, 9 wrapped up the How Stiles Gets Vamped section, but since I'm behind in pretty much everything I'll handle the comments and revisions for both at the same time.
> 
> Anyway, here, have some snark and awkwardness and some supernatural world building.
> 
> In case anyone waiting on Devil is wondering, I'm going to try to get the first chapter up tonight. Fair warning though, it's a lot different timeline wise for reasons I'll explain in the notes.

Stiles hangs upside down from the rafters in Derek’s loft, gripping a metal beam with his toes to keep himself from falling, missing the sensation of blood rushing to his head.

“You mind helping, Stiles?” Derek calls up to him sounding even more sour than usual.

“I’m not helping you decorate my own prison,” Stiles mutters. They can have a whole conversation whispering in separate rooms now. _Not worth it_.

“What did he say?” Parrish asks.

“Bitch bitch, moan moan,” Derek snarks.

Stiles lets out a hiss (because whoever doles out the creature noises thought it was funny to make him sound like a wet cat just to make him stand out as much as possible among a bunch of growly canine people). “I’d say be nice or I’ll bite you, but that’s kind of the plan anyway so…” He lets go with his toes, turns as he plummets, and lands in a action movie crouch, his left leg well forward of the other, his right hand touching down lightly on the floor.

Derek gives him a flat look over the dresser he’s carrying in arms. “Sorry, _Neo_ , there’s no blue pill for this.”

Stiles fixes him with his most intense gaze, trying to spear directly into the werewolf’s mind. “Be in my eyes,” he intones. “Be in me. Go bring me a pizza and a new flatscreen.” He has to give the guy credit; Derek mananges to keep his face blank just long enough to get Stiles’s hopes up before rolling his eyes and _tossing_ the dresser at Stiles.

He catches it easy enough; it might as well be a shoebox full of helium for all that he feels its weight. “Subtle reminder about superstrength not subtle,” he gripes. As if the charred ruin that remains of the first floor of his house isn’t reminder enough. Stiles is just grateful his dad was in the kitchen making forbidden breakfast food when he came downstairs for his So You’re An Ageless Supernatural Predator brunch with Noshiko, supervised by Kira, Scott, Parrish, _and_ Derek; the fatty meat cooking on his stove obscured his scent. The pack smells like warm, exotic yummy things, not _food_ exactly (he may have cried the night before when he took a big bite of his rebirthday cake and found it completely unappetizing), but the former kitsune is mostly human at this point as is her scent, and Stiles is a growing vampire. Still, pouncing fangs first before she’d gotten two steps inside the door was mortifying, on the level of no reason boner while dressing down for gym class. Noshiko, like the clever fox she used to be, anticipated this and came ready with a jar of what Stiles later dubbed Yuki-Onna Off, some kind of vile Shinto concoction meant to repel a particular type of Japanese vampire that likes to waylay travelers during snowstorms, which she threw in his face without hesitation. It only sort of worked, in that it temporarily blinded him and blocked his sense of smell, but at the same time turned him from Hungry Out of Control Vampire into Majorly Pissed Off Hungry Out of Control Vampire. His memory of the supernatural smackdown that followed is a little hazy, which is probably for the best (and since no one was hurt that couldn’t heal it’s like it never happened, or it will be once the repair work is done). The hour long shower he’d needed after before he stop coughing and tearing up gave the humans time to evacuate and Scott a chance to pack up Stiles’s things so he’d feel at home as he was sent into exile while he worked on being not a ravenous bloodsucking fiend. “Why didn’t I get useful powers like hypnosis?” he complains. “Or anything else for that matter.”

“Being immortal, strong enough to knock an Alpha unconscious with one blow, and practically indestructible isn’t enough for you?” Parrish asks mildly.

Stiles rolls his eyes at the phoenix (ha! he loves being right). “Yes, it’s going to be so much fun watching all of you grow old and die. But hey! In the mean time I can beat up my best friend real good and get excruciating injuries as often as I want! _Yay_.”

The smile Parrish gives him is a shade brittle. “I’m with you on the first and last.”

 _Ouch_ , right.

“An eternity of Stiles? I’m so sorry,” Derek says sympathetically. “Let’s just get on with this.”

“Lunch?” Stiles perks up. “God, I’m starving. By the way, I _still_ can’t believe you guys let me put that big bucket of pink boogers _in my mouth_. Seriously, it was like that evil psychic snot in Ghostbusters 2. _Ungh_ , why did it have to taste _so good_?” He’ll admit it over his dead body, but he’s also very curious to see if the whole bloodsucking thing is as ridiculously ecstatic as it’s always portrayed in fiction. His hopes plummet when Derek rolls up his sleeve. “Why does it have to be _you_ ; I’m not that big a fan of sour foods, ya know?”

“Don’t worry, you have a second course over here?” Parrish drawls sketching a little wave.

“Mmm, caliente, yum,” Stiles deadpans, partly in response to his lunch’s off-putting lack of enthusiasm, partly because he’s afraid this will go somewhere awkwardly erotic. It doesn’t help that he’s doing this with the two hottest guys in the pack. Apparently he has a thing for pale skin, sarcasm, blue eyes, and a lot of muscular definition; the first two being things held in common, which makes sense, and the last one is probably a reaction to years on the lacrosse team feeling like Twiggy “The Twig Boy” Twiggerson in comparison to all the Dannys and Jacksons in the locker room (he also probably deserves some kind Obliviousness Award for not figuring out he was bi a lot sooner with all of _that_ staring him in the face every day; he blames Lydia in all her dazzling dark gravity). “Really though, why can’t Scott do this? He actually _offered_ and everything.” Which was simultaneously both the sweetest and grossest demonstration of Epic Bro-Love in the history of their long and storied friendship but whatever.

Derek holds out his wrist and sighs tiredly. “Just do it before I go catch you a mountain lion.”

“I am _not_ Edward Cullen,” Stiles mutters grabbing the werewolf’s arm hard enough to leave bruises that will last a couple hours (who’s the Alpha now bi-yatch?), remembering the horror he felt when he first looked in the mirror and saw his hair bleached down to a bronzy color, his eyes gone from human-amber to the actual Color of Fossilized Tree Sap kind. He leans down and sniffs. The blood pumping under Derek’s skin somehow it has its own scent distinct from the rest of him (which unsurprisingly is musky blend of man and wolf that is not at all unpleasant, _unfortunately_ ), rich earth, warm oak, and something heavy-acrid that makes Stiles think about unhealthy high calorie foods. Compared to the ‘wolves his fangs are tiny (he’s going to be stuck with _so many_ size jokes once enough time has passed for this to be funny), diamond hard and wickedly pointed; they pierce Derek’s skin without meeting any real resistance and only a faint silken slide as Stiles uses them to draw two deep parallel cuts about a centimeter long crossing the large, shallow veins. As much as he’d love to spend some time trying to make the werewolf uncomfortable by doing not-quite lascivious things to the man’s wrist with his tongue, hunger takes over the instant the hot, fragrant blood wells up. Stiles seals his mouth over the cuts and drinks, a slow, gentle pull more than a suck.

“Holy mother of Anne Rice that’s better than curly fries,” he moans around Derek’s wrist, drawing an uncomfortable laugh from Parrish. The werewolf’s blood is just human enough to be food, full of dark, wild energy that is almost compatible with Stiles’s needs, not exactly the warm pulsing glow that made him lose his shit at Noshiko, but so much more _potent_ that it more than makes up the difference. He drinks until he feels Derek’s other hand on the back of his head. “You uh…taste good.” It’s only after he takes a step back that he realizes the hand on his head was to keep him there, because the werewolf is giving off a cloud of lust, hard on clearly visible through his tight jeans.

Derek shakes himself like a dog trying to dry its coat, blinks until the steady blue glow fades from his eyes. “That would awkward with Scott.”

The sympathetic arousal that was starting make Stiles’s own jeans feel a little tight evaporates like frost in the Gobi Desert. “Ayunh,” he chokes in agreement.

“Yeah, nobody wants to see that,” Jordan murmurs faintly before blushing and finding a very interesting spot on the wall to examine.

Stiles files that tidbit of information away for later, not because he wants to _do_ anything with, but because that’s just what he _does_. Yup. “So…I’ve still got some room left.

Parrish rolls his eyes, which doesn’t negate the thick, nervous swallow. “Okay,” he says tilting his head to the side.

The form fitting v-neck tee-shirt on the overly straight-laced Deputy makes a lot more sense now. Stiles steps into him but keeps his hips tilted back. Sure he’s eighteen and fair game, but Parrish works for his _dad_ and there’s no reason to make this any more awkward on the poor guy than absolutely necessary. He bites down on the taught curve of the Deputy’s neck so very gently and takes a tentative sip. Parrish, Jordan (Stiles’s _teeth_ are inside the man; why stand on formality?), smells human, tastes human, but the psychotic hunger doesn’t rear its ugly head, like it’s hesitating just outside the door for some reason. Stiles relaxes and pulls more deeply, thinking that he’s totally got this and he’ll be out from under house arrest so quick they might as well just stop moving in the furniture. Naturally, things go sideways the instant that passes through his head.

He feels it when the phoenix rushes to the surface, a blistering heat that bypasses his skin entirely and sears into him. The blood coursing over his tongue _ignites_ with vital energy, and he bites down hard, control going out the window. Jordan gasps, and Stiles can’t tell if it’s from pleasure, pain, or both, and it should worry him that he can’t, but all he can think about is getting _more_. He takes two deep gulps of the sanguine equivalent of rocket fuel before the heat pooling in his chest and abdomen turns from tingle to raging inferno. “Jesus fuck,” he chokes jerking away. It feels as though an anaconda made of molten steel is trying to constrict his internal organs (he distantly wonders if he actually has any of those anymore). It’s not painful, exactly, more like Way Too Much. Cold, delicious, pure, and absolute rises up and crashes against the fire, quenching it. With the heat gone all that remains is life, leaving him feeling warm and full despite the ice rushing through his veins. “That is some good stuff,” he moans, satiated. “You okay dude?”

Jordan’s breathing is rapid and heavy but he nods. “That was intense.”

Derek clears his throat. “Notice anything odd?” he asks in that tight snippy voice he uses when he wants someone to feel like an idiot.

Stiles arches and eyebrow at him, a little pissed that the guy has to harsh such a nice buzz.

The werewolf takes a deep breath and blows out forcefully, exhaling a thick plume of steam into the air.

“Huh. Guess I was right about that Abominable Snowman thing after all,” Stiles muses.

He carries the rest of the stuff into the loft while his two temporary roommates take a few minutes get their testosterone back under control. It’s going to be an interesting…however long he’s there for.

 

***

 

Stiles doesn’t even make it a full twenty-four hours before he finds a glitch in their little forced domesticity project. The idea was that Derek and Jordan would take turns staying with him, which should have been easy given that his dad controls the duty schedule and Derek’s method of obtaining income is to buy buildings and sit around reading while people par him for owning stuff. Unfortunately making the shift schedule work is a lot more complicated when it’s literally 24/7, and as it turns out living/undead/reborn/whatever vampires _don’t sleep_ (at least they don’t have to worry about him sleepwalking and eating people, _again_ , and much less metaphorically this time). Stiles does the homework Scott brings him when the Alpha stops by to see if he and Derek have killed each other yet (officially he’s had a terrible relapse of his pneumonia and confined to strict bed rest), indexes the Hecatean spellbook for Mason (no more magic for Stiles, not until he can figure out how it intersects with his new abilities, _sigh_ ), skypes with his dad, and makes a big pile of steaks so his “donors” can get their strength back up. By ten o’clock he’s run out of productive things to do and _really_ missing his Adderall.

“Will you stop bouncing all over the place?” Derek growls from the sofa where he’s stretched out with a book (of all the series in all the genres who would have thought the werewolf would be huge fan of Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt novels?).

“Will _you_ stop complaining every five minutes?” he snaps back. “That’s _my_ schtick.” God, it’s like he’s picked up the asshole older brother he never wanted.

“Stiles, it’s barely above freezing in here. Calm down before a wendigo tries to use my loft as a game locker.”

Derek’s sense of humor is not only painfully dry but morbid as well, and it irritates Stiles because it makes it seem like they should actually get along. “Can I get a snack in?” Maybe blood will help. Maybe he shouldn’t be using The Vampire Diaries as a reference tool for angsty immortal behavior.

“There’s milk and ground pork in the fridge,” Derek says dismissively before going back to his reading.

Stiles grimaces but doesn’t argue; stress eating is a pretty widespread coping mechanism after all, and it’s not like he can get fat. He is gaining weight, though, as his body continues changing from human to…not. Moreover it would probably be a good idea to enjoy his last few weeks of getting to eat anything resembling actual food, even if it’s just dairy with a side of raw pig bits (he’d eat Derek, which would get him a high protein meal and unblock the exit at the same time, but he’s afraid the guy’s eyebrows would get stuck in his teeth). He stalks into the kitchenette and retrieves the milk and ground pork, slams the refrigerator door, and carries his food over to the sink. Eating raw meat like this is messy and it’s just easier cleanup. Besides, going through the process of getting plates and silverware and whatnot would legitimize this as a diet, and he doesn’t want to do anything that might encourage it to become a lasting thing. The pork tastes edible enough, in a flat flavorless sort of way, and though he can now taste _exactly_ how much of what’s in milk is only supposed to come out of a chem lab, _not_ a cow, it’s drinkable. For now. It makes him wonder what he’ll look like when he’s over his chrysalis impression, if all this protein and calcium is going to turn into a respectable amount of manly muscle, or if it’s all going into making his skull even thicker and leaving him looking like a scrawny kid for the rest of eternity (if nothing else they can use him as Kate Bait; he’s pretty sure the only reaction he’d get from, well, everyone if he drains her drier than his bank account is a stirring round of applause).

When the water running over his hands as he leans up after his meal leaves a thin rime of frost on the sink it gives him something to focus on (and freak out about). “So, how do we figure out who Empousa bargained with to get herself a piece of the Stiles?” he asks.

Derek closes his book with a thoughtful rumble. The whole Secret Scholar Wolf side of the guy is a little unbalancing, but it does come with useful knowledge, and actually provides a common interest (hopefully enough to supply the conversation for duration). “Yuki-onna are always female.”

Stiles has a horrible mental image of himself turning a woman. Despite what the girls at Jungle keep insisting, it’s not a pretty picture. Besides, he’d miss having a penis. “Well, I’m not a girl.”

“I’m aware,” Derek snorts. “You’re jeans aren’t _that_ loose.”

“Did…did you just give me a backhanded compliment about _the size of my dick_?” Stiles demands incredulously. Not that he’d taken the opportunity to make comparisons when they were all basically on display.

The tired, condescending sigh that Derek heaves out makes him bristle in response. “I was just pointing out how uncomfortable it is having a teenage vampire force his horniness on you.”

Stiles makes that hissing sound again, damn it. Instead of coming up with a verbal reply, he goes to his laptop and pulls up some very loud gay porn, and minimizes it while he looks through Peter’s vampire stuff. The annoyed growling is highly gratifying, but his enjoyment of it is muted somewhat by the discovery that the sights and sound of unreasonably attractive men having extremely athletic sex does nothing for him. At all. It seems the blood thing isn’t so much a kink as integral element of foreplay. Wonderful. Of course, it’s not like he’s going to be dating in the near future, either literally or euphemistically. The whole noshing on his date as a dessert course issue aside, the effect his venom (or whatever the hell it is) has makes him a walking consent nightmare, and all his research thus far confirms that repeated deep feedings can seriously warp a victim’s mind and emotions. Hence the Derek/Jordan solution, the only two people who can physically handle donating that don’t have any preexisting emotional ties to him to get all warped (well, he has a _something_ with Derek, but their undying pact of mutual antipathy is probably a bonus here).

The werewolf pretends not to hear the moaning and slapping sounds coming out of the laptop’s speakers for a while before picking up their conversation again as if the whole dick comment/porn baiting didn’t and isn’t happening. “The type of Powers that get off on turning humans into supernatural creatures aren’t around anymore.”

Stiles shuts off the porn (because it’s starting to depress him, _not_ because grateful for the intriguing line of discussion). “You’re talking about gods, like actual zip down from Olympus and fry your ass with a thunderbolt _gods_.” He doesn’t need to look to register Derek’s shrug; he can _hear_ it. That’s going to take a while to not be weird. “A that’s kind nuts, and B, what do you mean not around anymore? I thought the whole point was that they were eternal, you know, _god like_.”

“Archetypal forces need there to be a reflection of themselves in this this world in order to manifest. Human advancement has taken us out of sync with them. They _exist_ still but they don’t have the same kind of discreet identities they did when man used to worship them.”

“Stop being all intelligent and stuff; it’s freaking me out,” Stiles grumbles. But he has something he can sink his teeth into, now, wireless internet, and the Hales’ digital library of the weird.

It keeps him occupied until the wee hours of the morning when Jordan returns and relieves Derek for a few hours of sleep. Stiles might snicker a little when the Deputy puts a coat _on_ after he comes inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> Derek gets a job. Sort of. Stiles figures out a way to occupy himself at night with minimal supervision needed that seems specially designed to annoy the hell out of the werewolf.


	11. Tabula Rasa

A werewolf, a vampire, and a phoenix walk into a bookstore.

It sounds like the setup to a bad Ancient Greek joke. Derek probably shouldn’t have been surprised to get the call from Alika Mahealani, like all of his mother’s terrifying friends she prefers the sneak attack approach to social interaction. It _didn’t_ surprise him that she somehow got a hold of his private cell number; her husband is every bit as dangerous with computers as she is with accounting. He probably should have resisted her suggestion to buy Empousa’s ill-gotten shop a little harder, but she began their conversation by skipping “hello” and launching right into “I managed to recover most of your family’s stolen funds and there’s an absolutely _perfect_ investment on the market right now.” It was like being bowled over by a middle aged she-Stiles, only with a lot less sarcasm and a great deal more self-possession. His doubts faded rapidly as soon as his vampire houseguest bounded into the stacks babbling excitedly over the shelves and shelves of out of print arcane texts. Empousa must have built her library up over centuries if not millennia, using it as bait to lure in practitioners she could turn into powerful Servitors. One of the few good things to come out of Stiles turning is that even with this much knowledge at his fingertips there’s only so much damage he can do. Whatever Higher or Lower Power it was that backed his transformation has to be ancient, elemental even, and the inherent inflexibility in the nature of entities will restrict how badly the vampire will be able to fuck with the natural order now his magic has been transformed from mortal to immortal.

Stiles bounces up to him as if summoned by his thoughts waving a small book with a faded red cover, lisping slightly around the fangs that are showing in his excitement (Derek is reasonably the vampire hasn’t yet noticed that the canines on his lower jaw have also gone long and sharp). “ _Look look look_! The Provenance of the Planes! It actually traces supernatural bloodlines to their _mythical antecedents_!”

Jordan is watching him with wary amusement. “Is this a thing? Instead of kid in a candy store it’s vampire in a used and rare bookshop?”

“Eh, it’s probably not so weird when the books are all hundreds of years younger than you are,” Stiles says dismissively.

Derek can’t read his scent anywhere as well as he had before, but he knows the kid (man, now?) well enough to guess that every mortal person Stiles cares just flashed through his mind in a deathbed montage right out of Six Feet Under. On the bright side, this is probably the most gleeful the kid-man-immortal has been since he got sacrificed to life-sucking tree stump. Derek doesn’t quite hide his smile well enough.

“I saw that,” Jordan whispers sotto voce. “He’s kind of contagious, isn’t he?”

“Only after I drain them,” Stiles says absently, pouring over the inventory records on the computer next to the register. “Wow, no wonder nobody can find anything in here. It looks like she catalogued her collection by region of origin, then tradition, then reliability of the information with no respect for date or _language_! Aha! I have an Idea!”

Derek shakes his head as Stiles bounds away like a demented antelope, the strength backing his strides carrying him a dozen feet at a go. “If we can just figure out a way to keep him contained here at night it would make our lives so much easier.” He might actually sleep for a change.

Jordan nods emphatically. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed our multispecies sleepovers for last week straight, but it would be nice to go back to own my apartment before I forget where it is.”

“I heard all that,” Stiles declares in the other side of the store. “What do you two chuckleheads think I’m _doing_ over here?

“Having a sword and sorcery nerdgasm?” Derek suggests.

“Plotting world domination?” Jordan pitches in.

Stiles answering cackle is a little too maniacal for comfort. “Yes to the first, yes to the second, and…hold on, I need to cross-reference with something over in Eastern Europe.”

Derek almost suggests he just call his Scary Hunter Grandma, but decides to let Stiles figure that out on his own (he’ll check later if there’s a Hunter’s Genealogy somewhere in the shop he can leave lying around in a strategic location). “What are looking for?”

“Wood!”

“Too easy,” Jordan mutters under his breath.

“There’s a supply of reagents in the stock room,” Derek calls.

“On it!”

Jordan makes a thoughtful noise. “Is he about to do something magic? Should I be updating my will right now?”

“I’m not that incompetent!”

“Apples,” Derek reminds him. “Apples.”

“Dudes! We should totally play that later!”

And _what_?

“Sometimes I think he forgets that three of us aren’t actually brothers,” Jordan muses.

“If we were then the feeding would be even more awkward,” Derek points out. Actually it’s not so bad at this point. They’ve taken to filling a small cup with blood as needed instead of direct feeding. It’s not as good for Stiles, but Derek and Jordan regenerate the lost blood so quickly they can afford to do it more often (granted, between the two of them they’re probably eating an entire cow a week, but that’s not something you’re likely to catch a werewolf complaining about).

Stiles comes careening back u to them carrying a towering rainbow pile of books and a jar of some kind of sawdust. “Lies. You guys are totally my monster brothers from another mother beast.”

Derek sighs. “Is it bad that I can actually understand him when he talks now?”

Jordan nods grimly. “You’ve clearly fallen under his Dark Influence.”

“Hellooooooo?” Stiles sings waving his arms around wildly to get their attention and sending his pile of research flying in every direction. “Aw hell. Whatever; I’ve pretty much got the gist anyway.”

“We’re going to be toads,” Derek groans coverin his eyes.

“Aww don’t worry, I’ll kiss it better,” Stiles assures him, waggling his eyebrows salaciously.

“That’s frogs,” Jordan corrects.

Naturally Scott chooses this moment to walk into the store, a look of pain and betrayal plastered all over his face. “ _Dude_ , Stiles. I don’t want to hear about you kissing Derek.”

“I’d rather kiss the Venatrix,” Derek says rolling his eyes.

Scott snickers. “I think you mean Dominatrix.”

Stiles wallops him on the head with a collection of Slavic fairy tales. “Oh my _God_ , no! What is it with you and kinky sex fetishes, Scott? Oh God it’s _in my brain_! How am I supposed to look at Kira when I keep picturing her paddling your ass with a rubber katana saying “Who’s been a naughty puppy?”

Derek picks up the heaviest volume within reach, a Victorian Era treatise on folk herbalism, and nails him in the gut with it (it’s wildly unfair that he can barely rock Stiles back will a full armed swing). “Now it’s in _all our heads_. Ass.”

“What’s in our heads?” Kira asks curiously as she comes through the door.

Everyone stares at her in horror, save Stiles who literally falls over laughing.

“Do I even want to know?”

“No!” three voices chorus.

Derek pokes Stiles in the ribs with his foot. “Weren’t you about to do magic? Maybe when it goes horribly wrong it will erase the last five minutes from our memories.” If there’s ever a place to indulge in wishful thinking it’s a building full of magic books.

“Right, magic,” Stiles mumbles, sobering. “Actually, Jordan’s going to be the one doing it.”

“Me?” Jordan says flatly.

“Yup. You’ve got fiery mojo going on. It’ll help.” Stiles hands him the jar of sawdust. “I’ve been reading up on cross-cultural similarities between archetypal personifications of natural forces…”

Scott makes a disgruntled noise. “Can I get some subtitles over here?” he mutters.

Stiles ignores him. “Since I’m all wintry I did some research and found a protective charm that pops up independently in Celtic, Norse, and Slavic mythology.”

Derek eyes the jar dubiously. “Hawthorn? I haven’t even reopened the shop yet, Stiles. If you set loose a horde of pixies in here I will methodically stab you with every type of metal, wood, and rock until I find something that works.”

“Dude, are you afraid of _Tinkerbell_?” Scott chortles.

“Pixies aren’t funny, Scott,” Kira says seriously. “My mom told me some stories…” she trails off with a shudder.

“No pixies,” Stiles promises crossly. “Just take a handful of the sawdust and walk around me in a circle counterclockwise and say…” He looks around, grabs a pen and scrap of paper and hastily scribbles down a couple lines. “Say _this_.”

Jordan takes the paper. “You’re messing with me,” he accuses.

Stiles shrugs. “Maybe a little. Just trust me it’ll work. Assuming, you know, that it _works_.”

“I can’t believe I just followed you around that bend,” Jordan mutters as unscrews the lid of the jar.

“You’re cleaning this up,” Derek says pointing a finger at Stiles.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s make some magic already!”

Jordan clears his throat, grimaces and starts to circumambulate around the vampire, letting the hawthorn spill out though his fingers as he intones the ridiculous words Stiles wrote for him.

_Hawthorn! Hawthorn! Red and bright,_

_Shield us in Summer’s fiery light._

_Whitethorn! Whitethorn! Bring thy might._

_And drive away the Winter’s blight._

“Does this make me Piper?” Jordan asks wryly. “Because Derek’s definitely the Pru here.”

“Charmed? Really?” Derek considers hiding in the stockroom until the pop culture references _go away_.

Stiles laughs brightly. “Does that make me Phoebe? ‘Cause if you’re comparing me to Alyssa Milano I’ll take it, even if she is a girl and I’m _still not_ ,” he says with a glare at Derek, because he’s too obnoxious to let anything go. Ever.

“Um…did it work?” Scott asks waving a hand through the air over the circle.

Jordan shrugs. “Don’t look at me.”

“Oh, right,” Stiles mutters closing one eye over a grimace of expected pain and slowly extending a single finger towards the imaginary line. It isn’t nearly so dramatic as mountain ash, which blocks the vampire’s power but doesn’t hold him. Instead Stiles’s arm just…stops. “Neat!” he crows pressing his hands up against the invisible wall. “It’s less force field-y and more divert-y.”

“The same thing happened to me last Christmas,” Kira tells him with commiserating smile. “My parents took me to this holiday party but the host had holly garlands around the doorframe and I just kind of…went sideways into the bushes.”

“Holly repels lightning critters,” Stiles explains. “So yay! This worked. Now somebody let me out.”

The rest of them share a look.

“Oh _hell no_!” Stiles yells.

“Pizza?” Jordan suggests.

“I’ll buy,” Derek agrees.

Stiles kicks the barrier hedging him in. “I’m _so_ biting all of you when I get out of here.”

 

***

 

“So you’re really doing okay?” the Sheriff asks for at least the tenth time.

“Obviously,” Stiles replies tartly. “You can tell by how _not_ exsanguinated you are.”

Derek rolls his eyes at the Stilinski family antics. Stiles _is_ coming along fairly well though, down to needing only one chaperone for Father/Son time. Jordan has also made hawthorn charms for the Sheriff, Noshiko, Mason, Lydia, and Melissa, but no one is mentioning that (including Stiles who has to be able to smell them). “He can probably handle going back to school next week as long as the pack can give him a small amount of blood between classes.” It isn’t the best way to teach him about controlling his hunger, but at the moment they’re mostly concerned with getting everyone through the remainder of the school year alive.

The Sheriff nods like that makes perfect sense (Stiles isn’t the only one who’s coming along; having his son make the transition into supernatural creature has given Stilinski the needed push to finally jump into their altered reality with both feet). “Okay, so what are we going to do about your hair?”

“They’re going to feed me to Lydia,” Stiles grumbles.

“Good luck with that,” Stilinski chuckles. “How’s the bookstore coming along, Derek?”

Their weird pseudo-family dynamic just keeps getting weirder. The joke about him, Jordan and Stiles being brothers seemed so innocuous at the time, but having dinner with the Sheriff a couple of times a week has added in a father figure, which somehow makes it feel like a much bigger deal. “Well, Sir.” The first time the honorific just fell out of his mouth it came as a shock, now he barely notices. “We finished pulling the dangerous books off the shelves and sent the orders out for the mainstream stuff to replace it.”

“I managed to talk him into turning the heavy stuff into a side business. You know, like a referral thing?” Stiles adds proudly.

It’s a good idea, not Derek is going to tell him that. The pack has a hell of a long way to go to cementing a place for themselves in the supernatural world, and controlling a valuable resource like that will jumpstart the process (which Stiles has doubtless already considered, but it’s always better to avoid the inevitable gloating tares that follow acknowledging the fact he’s actually capable of using his brain once in a while). “I still haven’t decided on a new name. I’m not calling it Triskelion Tomeporium,” he says quickly cutting off the suggestion before it can be voiced. “Not everything has to be a pun, Stiles.”

“Blasphemy!”

The Sheriff gets an odd, considering look that makes Derek nervous (it’s nearly identical to the one Stiles gets when he figures out Something Important and starts plotting out what mayhem he create from it) but it vanishes as fast as it appears. “Any more luck figuring out your…abilities?” he asks his son.

Stiles groans and thunks his head down on the table. “No, and it’s fucking frustrating.”

“Language.”

“Sorry. It’s just annoying feeling like a loose cannon all the time when all I get out of it is the mystical power to make everyone around me uncomfortable.”

“And that was a preexisting ability,” Derek points out helpfully.

The Sheriff covers his laugh with an unconvincing cough, then takes a huge bite of his double turkey bacon veggie burger to hide his smile, which works much better, once the taste of it hits his tongue.

“Oh no. You’re beer is getting warm,” Stiles deadpans. He reaches over and wraps his hand around the bottle for a moment. “There, all better.”

The Sheriff arches a brow at him and turns the beer upside down over his plate, but nothing comes out, its contents frozen solid. “Well, you’ll be a big hit when the first heat wave of the summer rolls around.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not nearly as useful as illusions and hypnosis.”

Derek snorts. “It’s like he’s defenseless,” he says sarcastically.

“I’m with Derek on this one, son,” The Sheriff agrees. “You don’t have to be able to do everything yourself.”

Stiles shrugs. “I guess I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I’m suddenly the muscle.”

Clearly his insecurities about his place in the pack are deeper seated than Derek thought, and he feels like an idiot for not realizing sooner that they wouldn’t go away just because Stiles is supernatural now. Maybe he should do something about that.

The Sheriff clears his throat. “Derek? You in there?”

“Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“Did it hurt?” Stiles snarks.

Derek gives him a feral grin. “It will,” he says pulling out his phone and sending a mass text.

 

He gives the vampire a pint while they wait for the pack to show up at the loft, and for once motley crew of teenagers actually manages to pull things together in a timely fashion.

“Seriously, dude, what’s going _on_?” Stiles wheedles.

“You should work on learning patience,” the Sheriff remarks blandly. “Unless you want your eternal life to seem very long.”

“You’re hilarious. Oh wait.”

Derek hears the others thundering up the stairs and meets them at the door. “Did you bring everything I asked for?”

Scott pats the duffle bag hanging off his shoulder. “Yeah we got it.”

“I smell a rat. Well, a wolf, but whatever,” Stiles says suspiciously. “Did you bring an actual bag of tricks?”

“You don’t want to have to rely on your strength, so we’re going to have a training session,” Derek explains. “All of us at once versus you.”

“Damn, I should have brought my video camera,” the Sheriff sighs.

“I got it!” Mason chirps holding up a carrying case and tripod.

“SO my newest humiliation will be recorded for posterity?” Stiles groans. “Why are you doing this to me, Sour Wolf? I thought we were actually getting along!”

“It might help if you stop calling him names,” Lydia suggests drily.

“He likes it.”

“I really don’t.”

Several heads snap towards him, including Stiles. “Was…was that a lie?” Danny asks, smirking.

“Let’s just get started,” Derek growls.”

Lydia, Mason, and the Sheriff set up the camera inside of a section of floor in the corner roped off with a lumpy chord twisted from three strands of yarn strung with dried hawthorn berries (their enterprising banshee has been busy, it seems), while the rest of them form a loose ring around Stiles and the bag.

“So how does this work?” he asks, loading up the pockets of the cargo pants Scott brought him with the other odds and ends for him to use.

“You defend yourself while the rest of attack,” Derek replies pulling off his shirt. “The sparring match ends when we pin you.”

“Why is everyone always getting half naked around me?” Stiles complains as the rest of them follow suit.

“Jesus,” the Sheriff mutters. “I feel like I’m in a photo shoot for teen sportswear.”

“We could make a calendar,” Mason quips.

Derek looks around at the pack, trying to see what this looks like from a human perspective. By werewolf standards the athletic shorts the boys are wearing and the sports bras Kira and Malia have on are more modest than strictly necessary. Besides, trolling Stiles is always fun. “You should take your shirts off too.”

“It’s only fair,” Danny agrees with an expectant look.

“Evil. All of you,” Stiles mutters, discarding the hoodie, the plaid button up under it, and the white undershirt beneath that. “Go on. Ogle away you flock of vultures,” he says crossing his arms over his bare chest.

“Oh my eyes. You’re hideous,” Lydia observes in a flat, robotic monotone.

“Maybe you can find a spell to conjure some positive body image,” Jordan suggests.

Derek looks Stiles over appraisingly, wonders if maybe the vampire isn’t showing up normally in mirrors after all. Over the last week his body has lost what little fat it had, allowing the definition underneath to show through. Sure, with the werewolves standing next to him as a comparison his trim physique looks almost stringy, not an ounce of unnecessary bulk on him, but the thin ropes of muscle are so sharply defined he resembles an anatomy model. He looks like a predator, lean and deadly. Perhaps actually using his body will help him see it more clearly. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Stiles spread his legs apart, hands up in a ready stance.

The pack converges on him. Derek spent a lot of time after the fight with Empousa’s thralls thinking about how to improve their combat capabilities, both as a unit and individually, and came to the conclusion that their greatest weakness is holding back, either too much or not enough. To that end they spar in human form, Kira wielding a solid wooden katana, Jordan a pair of rattan short sticks (additionally this cuts down on the bleeding, which is probably prudent, considering).

Things get off to a rocky start.

Stiles seems to have a hard time hitting his friends (which apparently doesn’t include Derek, given the kick to the gut that sends him flying clear across the room) while they in turn don’t know to hit him _well_. After a few painfully awkward minutes of almost-sparring Derek steps back to watch in amused horror as the rest abandon all pretense of finesse and simply pile on Stiles, bearing him to the floor where the vampire proceeds to buck, crawl, and flail, using his ridiculous strength to keep their hapless efforts at grappling from succeeding.

“I’m embarrassed for all of you,” Lydia says with a judgmental sniff.

Then Stiles gets a hand into one of his pockets and extracts a packet of mistletoe, scattering it all over the knot the pack has twisted themselves into, and sending them into sneezing and scratching fits as the irritating substance burns their skin. “I’m the king of the mountain!” he declares triumphantly, wriggling his way to the top of the pile.

Kira lets out an aggravated huff from somewhere in the middle and gets a hand on his leg. Unfortunately the megawatt shock she lets loose barely fazes the vampire, unlike the rest of the pack who let out a chorus of yelps as their muscles lock up on them involuntarily.

“This isn’t working,” Derek mutters while they sort themselves out.

“I don’t know,” the Sherriff hedges. “This is the most entertaining thing I’ve seen in a long time.”

“Glad to be of service,” Liam huffs.

“Why aren’t you really trying?” Malia asks Stiles. “I’ve seen you play lacrosse. I know you enjoy violence.”

“You make me sound like a sociopath.”

Scott chuckles. “Dude, have you met you?”

“I’m with Malia,” Danny chips in. “You get this…toothy look when you lay someone out on the field.”

Derek lets out an exasperated growl when he gets it. “Stiles, your fangs didn’t come out once.”

The vampire rolls his eyes. “Duh. I thought we were having a training exercise, not a blood-sex orgy.”

“I did not hear here that. Nope,” the Sherriff mutters under his breath.

“Just try, Stiles,” Derek prompts.

“It’s your funeral. Literally.”

This time when they encircle the vampire he opens his mouth and lets his fangs drop down. All twelve of them; each canine bracketed by two shorter, thicker points.

“Holy crap!” Scott blurts.

Stiles slaps a hand over his mouth. “Fah muh, hawt?”

Derek attacks without warning from behind, kicking him in the small of the back. The vampire falls forward, springs back with his hands, and comes at him with a hiss. He barely manages to slip aside from the strike. “Better.”

“Oh it’s _on_.”

Their second try goes much better. Stiles doesn’t have the same kind of speed and agility as the werewolves, kitsune, and phoenix, but now that he’s actually allowing himself to enjoy the fight his superior raw strength is enough to keep the entire pack from closing on him at once. When Derek and Scott try and flank him he grabs Liam and hurls him bodily into the Alpha. Jordan loses his sticks, which Stiles then uses to break Kira’s sword with a scissoring attack. Malia winds up getting in twice as many hits anyone else because her ex still can’t bring himself to hit her, but goes down when he blows a handful of narcotic yellow wolfsbane in her face. It takes almost twenty minutes for the pack to finally bring him down by getting two people on each of his legs and one of his arms, Scott taking the spare and twisting it up at an angle that keeps it from functioning properly.

“I give,” Stiles grunts, tapping out.

“We were just about to ask for a break anyway,” the Sheriff interjects, the words wavering and choppy.

Derek looks over in confusion and sees the man huddle with Mason and Lydia, shivering, ninety-six teeth chattering like a swarm of cicadas. Now that he’s not focused on the fight he realizes just how cold it’s gotten, the condensation on the loft’s windows frozen into glittering fractals of frost. “I’ll put a pot of coffee on.”

“Uh…oops?” Stiles says sheepishly.

“Dude, don’t apologize,” Scott admonishes. “This is _cool_.”

“Cold, Scott. It’s _cold_.”

There’s a chorus of booing that turns into muttered complaints as the heat of exertion leaves them letting the sweat beading on the skin cool, creating a highly uncomfortable situation. The pack gets redressed/bundles up in whatever they can find around the loft, sits around laughing and joking and drinking mug after mug of steaming coffee while the frigid air filters to through the open door. Eventually Melissa shows up arms laden with takeout containers that don’t last five minutes. Afterwards the whole pack contributes to Stiles dinner without complaint, and the vampire is able to hang out with the rest of them without issue, even spending half an hour with Lydia practically in his lap for warmth while they have an animated argument amount the some intersection between magic and quantum physics that even Derek can’t follow. It’s loud, boisterous, close, and slightly out of control. It’s _pack_.

And it’s perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> Jordan takes Stiles for his first minimally supervised day out and about. Ironically the bloody violence that ensues is not the vampire's fault.


	12. Never Kill A Boy On The First Date

Jordan rubs at his eyes tiredly. Sometimes he really envies Stiles for not needing rest, and finds it ironic that as a phoenix he is literally imbued with eternal fire but still finds himself running out of steam at the end of a long shift. He should be home getting some shut eye before he takes Stiles out for the day. Instead he keeps banging ahead against the case on his desk. Over the last week Beacon Hills has experienced a rash of unusually violent muggings and robberies, between two and four a _night_ , all in the same area, and yet before today not a single one of the victims or witnesses were able to give a coherent description of the attacker. Now that Jordan finally has one he feels horribly embarrassed, because in addition to the official files he keeps at the station, there’s a corkboard on the wall of his apartment papered with photocopies of various bestiaries and supernatural compendiums provided by Stiles who now spends his nights secured in Derek’s shop with hawthorn devouring the inventory. His mind had automatically jumped to supernatural creature causing him to waste days worth of work comparing the habits of redcaps, trolls, and dragons ( _dragons_ for fuck’s sake, but with Gold Stolen, Female, and Young comprising the victimology he had to check) trying to determine which was responsible and how to apprehend and/or eliminate it. But no, it proves to be a Caucasian male, mid-twenties, about five-nine and thin; a perfectly ordinary human suspect. The Sherriff had laughed himself silly.

He glares at the map he plotted the locations of the attacks on, willing it to catch fire and burn away everything but the location he seeks. The paper just sits on his desk, mocking him. Sadly there’s a very large gap between using a sympathetic substance against a supernatural creature and actual spellwork; thus far Jordan has shown zero talent for the latter. All of the incidents occurred in the same two mile radius, the cluster almost perfectly circular and densest near the center, which strongly implies that the perp has a hideout somewhere within. But after meticulously checking every possibility he’s come up empty. Focused as he is, it takes him several minutes to notice his boss hovering over him.

“Sir?” he asks with a startled flinch.

“Go. Home,” Stilinski commands fixing him a glare heavy with an almost parental level of disapproval.

“Yes Sir. Just let me pull the utility schematics first; I want to compare the sewer and electrical tunnels in the area to…”

The Sheriff snatches the map off the desk, folds it, and sticks it in the drawer with slow exaggerated motions. “Go home before I put you on paid leave and have Stiles drain you until you _have_ to get some rest.”

The last is a particularly effective threat, albeit not for the reasons his boss probably thinks. Wrestling with extremely attractive teenagers several times a week is causing Jordan enough strain; he has to keep forcibly reminding his libido to behave. At his point the erotic rush that comes from being fed on would probably cause him to lose his head completely, especially now that he’s seen exactly what Stiles keeps hidden under all those layers (and that is _not_ a thought he should be having with the teen’s father _standing right there_ ). “I’m going home,” he says obediently.

“Good man,” the Sheriff replies with a curt nod. “When you see my son please try and convince him to stop going through my old case files and updating me on supernatural leads at all hours of the night.”

Jordan covers a wry grin by lowering his head as he clears away his desk. Stiles’s inability thus far to uncover any substantive information about himself has sent the vampire into a research frenzy as he reaches for any and all supernatural mysteries to solve as way to make up for that failure. “I’ll do my best sir.”

The Sheriff’s conspiratorial expression hardens into a stern one. “You always do, and I appreciate that, but you should consider taking it easy once in a while, since spontaneous combustion is a literal possibility for you.”

At times like this it’s glaringly obvious where Stiles gets his sense of humor from. “I’ll keep that in mind, Sir.”

 

***

 

“I can’t believe I’ve had my teeth in your neck and this is the first time I’ve actually been to your apartment. It makes a guy feel kind cheap.”

Jordan steps out of the doorway to let him and Lydia inside. “You, are an artist,” he tells the banshee seriously.

“You only say that because you’ve never been her canvas,” Stiles retorts.

Lydia sighs. “Well, if you hadn’t spent so many years fantasizing about my hands on your body then your expectations might have been more realistic.”

“How did you _do_ this?” Jordan asks, examining the alterations to Stiles’s appearance. His hair is back to the _exact_ shade it was before, and if the color of his eyes is slightly off, it’s a subtle thing, likely unnoticeable unless you either know him well or are looking for it specifically. The real kicker is how masterfully Lydia constructed a look to back up the fiction about his illness. Between the weight loss (apparent loss, whatever it is the vampire is made of, there’s well over two hundred pounds of it) and the slight broadening of Stiles’s shoulders, the hang of his already baggy clothes is now even looser. Add that to the deftly applied cosmetic darkening the orbits of his eyes and he looks like he had a near brush with death by tuberculosis.

“I had to mix the dye custom,” Lydia explains. “The hardest part was the contacts but I managed to find a transparent amber tinted pair so I didn’t have to go with opaque brown. This looks much more authentic.”

“If you two keep staring at me like I’m hanging in Louvre I’m going to charge you thirty Euros for admission,” Stiles mutters. “Can we just go?”

Jordan grabs his keys and ushers them out of his apartment. “So where are we headed?”

Lydia goes home, and he drives to, of all places, Barnes and Noble.

“Are you afraid you’ll go into book withdrawal?” Jordan asks, sipping at the macchiato Stiles insisted on buying him as a necessary part of the bookstore/coffee shop experience.

The vampire takes a deep breath through his nose. “Ah, literary methadone.” He grimaces and looks over a knot of teenage girls. The daylight doesn’t appreciably affect Stiles’s abilities, but the instinct to hunt itself appears largely nocturnal. Still, it can’t be easy with this much young, healthy prey bouncing around in front of him wearing low-cut tops. “I really need to branch out a bit in my reading; you can only memorize so many bestiaries, herbals, and treatises on metaphysical whatsidoozits. Plus! The shop has a little kitchen in the basement and I finally have time to experiment with vegan cooking. It would be awesome if I could figure out how to turn tofu into something my dad would actually _eat_.”

“I thought the shop did have books on alchemy?” Jordan quips.

Stiles smiles and gives him a playful shove, actually manages to keep it almost human-light. “Shut up. _Ooooh_ , Egyptology.”

Two hours later they go to the checkout counter lugging a pile of books covering everything a bizarre range of topics from vegan cooking to medieval art history. Their conversations have been just as varied. They discuss Stiles’s college plans (Berkley, at least the first time), hilarious fishing trip accidents, the pros and cons of live versus recorded music, and even a little bit about Jordan’s years in Afghanistan, something he rarely talks about with anyone that wasn’t there.

“Do you want to head home?” he asks Stiles when they get back to the car, the young man gloating over his haul in the backseat as though he is some erudite variation of dragon instead of a vampire.

“Oh.” Stiles’s face falls. “Guess I forgot. Dad’s happy I’m finally coming home.”

“Are you?” Jordan wonders, trying to remember when it was over the last two weeks that their temporary living arrangement had turned from prison sentence into The Lost Boys.

Stiles hesitates for a moment, biting his lip. “Let’s just…put that off for a while, okay?”

“Sure,” Jordan agrees readily. He is having a good time after all, and the poor guy looks so ridiculously forlorn at the idea of returning to his normal(ish) high school schedule. “Where to?”

“Hmm, how about that old arcade on 10th?” Stiles suggests innocently.

It’s not very convincing. “That’s not exactly the best part of town,” Jordan hedges.

“Oh?”

“We’re not going after that mugger.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we do,” Stiles says quickly. “But if we happen to win a bunch of shiny prizes and take the long way back to the car…who knows what might happen?”

Jordan would be lying if he said it wasn’t tempting. If nothing else Stiles might be able to get a scent. The Sheriff has been adamant about not abusing the pack’s abilities to replace actual police work, but there’s an element of plausible deniability here that might get him around that edict. Still… “It’s not safe.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “What’s one human mugger going to do to us? I looked at the victims’ photos, whatever blade the guy is using looks so small it probably wouldn’t even break my skin.”

It’s a fair point. All of the young women save the last had a myriad of shallow slashes across their backs, necks, and arms, few of which were deep enough to even need stitches despite the frenzied nature of the assaults. “He used a gun in the most recent attack,” Jordan points out.

“See? He’s escalating,” Stiles argues. “We have a civic duty to play Skee Ball and protect the populace!”

“Just promise me you won’t go looking for trouble,” Jordan begs.

“No need; it usually finds me.”

 

***

 

Skee Ball is something of a disaster. Stiles’s control over his strength is a lot better than it was, but in his excitement over being one ball away from a perfect score he puts a little too much English on his last shot and blows a hole through the top of the machine and nearly gets them kicked out of the Arcade. Jordan then trounces him at air hockey, three shut-out games in a row much to Stiles irritation. After that they get sucked into an endless game of House of the Dead, making gleeful use of their unfair supernatural advantage to blow through level after level.

“Have you made any more progress figuring out who Empousa was working with?” Jordan asks conversationally just as a boss bears down on Stiles.

The vampire startles and misses, curses when his avatar screams as the giant zombie lays into it. “ _Ass_. And no.”

Jordan notes an undercurrent of strain in his voice that goes beyond simple frustration. “What’s wrong?”

Stiles groans and decapitates three flying enemies in rapid succession. “I’ve been doing s much better lately,” he mutters unhappily.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s an easy thing. Way. Too. Easy.”

“I seem to recall having to sit on you a couple of times to keep you from running after tasty humans,” Jordan drawls.

“Power comes at a _price_ ,” Stiles insists. “All I had to pay was two weeks of hanging out with you and the Sour Wolf. By the way, how freaky is it that actually _smiles_ now? Like _all the time_.”

Jordan hasn’t known the werewolf long enough for it to seem all that strange, but even he can appreciate the magnitude of the change and has some Ideas about the cause. “Maybe it’s you,” he suggests blandly.

Stiles snorts derisively. “Yeah, my sparkling personality has finally driven him insane. It’s a pack thing.”

“Right. And your research?” Jordan asks levelly, all too familiar at this point with Stiles’s fondness for deflecting uncomfortable topics via bizarre tangents.

“I’m worried” he admits. “Ha! Take that you shambling bastards!”

“Why?” Jordan wonders picking off the last few support zombies and focusing his fire on the boss.

“It’s…Derek said this thing about how the old gods aren’t around much anymore because they’re like, farther away from our world.”

Jordan mulls that over for a moment. “You think something is coming.”

“Dude, I’m _no mortal weapon can kill this creature_ immortal. That’s a Big Metaphysical Deal. Like calls to like, so basically I’m a walking homing beacon for some icy otherworldly force to lock onto and invade the physical plane.”

“That sounds like a worst case scenario to me,” Jordan says trying to cover his own trepidation over that possibility.

Stiles jabs him in the side with his plastic gun. “I can smell you freaking out just as bad as I am.”

“Give me a minute to process,” Jordan sighs. Truthfully? He has no intention of contemplating impending doom right now. It’s been a good day and he wants to keep it that way. He checks his watch and discovers it’s well after the time they should have headed out, several minutes past sunset in fact and the Arcade will be closing soon. “We should probably go after this level.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees morosely. “Wouldn’t want the advancing supernatural hordes to find me in a populated area.”

 

They don’t take “the long way” to the car, because Stiles stiffens almost as soon as they hit the parking lot, sniffing at the air.

“Is Timmy down the well?” Jordan jokes.

“Ha! I knew the dog jokes were still funny on the receiving end.”

“ _Stiles_.”

“Right, danger.” He takes another breath. “I’m still figuring out the whole smelling moods thing, but some emotions are clearer than others.”

“Such as,” Jordan prompts curiously.

“Lust. Fear. Hunger. My super sniffer says there’s a predator taking its prey nearby. This way.” He leaps off, superpowered strides propelling him forward on silent feet at an incredible velocity.

Jordan keeps up easily enough, though. They turn down a blind alley just in time to hear a woman scream. She young, maybe nineteen or twenty and wearing a maid’s outfit as she stands with her back pressed against the stained brick wall of a derelict building, easy squeezed tightly shut in terror. Her assailant has a gun pointed more or less in her direction while he rifles through her purse, and is a perfect match for the suspect’s description.

“Stiles, go,” Jordan hisses drawing his off-duty weapon. “Beacon County Sheriff’s Department!” he barks training the gun on the mugger. “Drop the weapon and put your hands behind your head.”

It turns out there are two perpetrators to go with the two MO’s, and he was right all along about the nature of the other.

A _thing_ about as large as a medium-sized dog comes bounding out of the shadows and jumps on the mugger’s shoulders shrieking like a teakettle and clawing at him wildly. The man screams and begins firing his weapon randomly.

Jordan takes cover behind a dumpster.

The woman screams again and bolts.

Stiles is too transfixed by the bizarre sight to move, and a stray bullet hits him in the forehead above the left eyebrow. His head snaps back sharply and crumples to the dirty pavement.

Jordan stares in abject horror for terrible, frozen instant before remembering: _vampire_. Besides, there’s nothing he can one way or the other. Instead he focuses on the mugger who finally manages to wrestle the creature attacking him off his shoulders, throwing it to the ground and firing a shot at it. Jordan rushes him so quickly the world blurs even to his eyes, striking the man in the back of his head with butt of his gun. The mugger drops like a puppet with its strings cut.

Frost suddenly rushes over ever visible surface as the temperature goes from Warm April Night to meat locker in the space of a heartbeat. Jordan whips around towards the sound of hacking and coughing in time to see Stiles spit the bullet out into his hand.

“Where is he?” the vampire demands, fangs gleaming in the half light of the alley, eyes glowing a frigid ice blue.

“Stiles!” Jordan blurts with relief, blurring to his side. “Are you okay?”

“I just had a bullet pass through my sinus passageways, what do you think?”Stiles snaps. “Now where is he? I feel like embodying natural selection and eating the dumb fuck who thought it would be a good idea to shoot me in the head.”

Jordan starts to roll up his sleeve with intention of giving him a drink before the vampire snaps and drains his collar like a Capri Sun, but freezes when he hears a pitiful mewling coming from behind him.”

Stiles blinks the blue out of his eyes, fangs and-and claws retracting. _That’s_ new. “Oh my God. Jordan _look_.” He scrambles over the ground to the fallen creature lying in steadily spreading pool of blood.

Jordan joins him, warily staring down at the animal. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yeah,” Stiles confirms in an awed voice. “It’s a griffin.” As in legend the beast is half lion and half eagle, with tufty feather-ears that are currenly drooping miserably. It’s feathered forequarters are a dappled mix of chalky white, grey, and charcoal feathers, the beak jet black and glossy like obsidian. The lion half, lion _cub_ half actually, is silvery, fluffy, and studded with dark rosettes. Most captivating are its huge mossy green eyes, full of intelligence and wide with pain and fear. “You have to help him,” Stiles demands.

“Me?” Jordan asks hysterically. “We need to take it to Deaton.”

“ _He_ doesn’t have time,” Stiles insists. “Do your healing thing.”

Jordan hesitates. Sure, he _theoretically_ has that ability, but he’s never actually _used_ it. The desperate little whimper-caws are impossible to ignore however. “Do we need to get the bullet out?”

Stiles shakes his head. “Through and through.”

Damn. Jordan carefully slides one hand under the griffin’s flank so he can reach the ragged exit wound, amazed that the little animal has survived this long. He places the other over the bullet hole and concentrates, remembers the sensation of energy, of life leaving him when Stiles feeds on him and tries to recreate that feeling. It seems to take forever, but finally a tingling spreads over his skin as something begins move, flowing down and bolstering the bright spark struggling between his hands. When the griffin suddenly goes slack he has a horrible moment when he fears he killed it, then something warm, wet and sticky brushes along the back of his hand.

“I think you’ve made a friend,” Stiles muses. “That was _awesome_ by the way.”

Jordan opens his eyes and finds the creature gratefully cleaning he blood of his fingers and making a bizarre avian version of a purring sound. “I’m not really a cat person.”

Stiles laughs, rubbing the griffin’s ears. “Good thing you’re both part bird then.”

And Jordan thought his life couldn’t get any weirder. _Whoops_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> Stiles goes back to school. It blows.


	13. School Hard

The downside to getting all of one’s supernatural knowledge from musty old books is most of them were written or copied from earlier sources long before the advent of modern life. As such they sometimes leave out itsy bitsy but ever so crucial details like the fact that it’s not _garlic_ which repels Master Vampires, but _High School_. It’s ridiculously unfair, because Stiles is, was, one of those rare teenagers that actually enjoyed going to class. He likes learning. He likes writing papers, and taking tests, and showing off his intellectual capabilities and out of the box style thinking. Now he wants to claw his face off halfway through first period English and actually has the necessary sharp pointy bits to do so ( _that_ little development has given him a Theory, one he’s keeping _very_ close to his chest for the time being). The last two weeks were chock full of freely available mental stimulation, despite his permanent state of sleeplessness, and it never occurred to him to wonder what becoming a vampire would do to his ADHD (it doesn’t help that he already went and did all his reading and assignments for the rest of the year while he was doing his makeup work). By lunchtime the boredom combined with the continuous effort of suppressing his desire to munch on the student body and the mental strain of having to deal with a building full of peoples’ smells and sounds has practically in tears (which could be bad, if that crying blood thing is true).

“How many more days of this do we have?” he groans banging his head on the table, carefully keeping the frustrated gesture human strength only lest he snap it in half.

“It’s only Monday, Stiles,” Malia reminds him rubbing a hand up and down his back soothingly.

“I think he means until the end of the school year,” Scott points out.”

“One month and twelve days,” Lydia supplies readily.

Stiles whimpers into the tabletop. “Maybe I should just drop out. What do Master Vampires need with a high school diploma, anyway? Besides which, I’ve got Derek. He’ll be my Sugar Doggie.”

“Please never say that again?” Liam pleads.

“Not unless you add a _lot_ of descriptive imagery,” Mason corrects, grinning at the look of utter betrayal his best friends shoots him in response.

“So not what I meant,” Stiles mutters. One of the many reasons he’s believed to be back home with his dad is that no longer has to expend energy pretending not to notice how attractive Derek is, which thinking about invariably calls to mind the memory of the werewolf’s rock hard dick straining inside his jeans, and Stiles needs to _stop thinking about that right now_. “Hey Malia. Wanna find and empty classroom for some liquid lunch/afternoon delight?”

“Sure,” she replies with a shrug while everyone else says “ _No_ ” in unison.

“I’m feeding you,” Scott volunteers.

“I love you man, but isn’t this kind of blurring the lines?”

“I’ll try and restrain myself,” Scott says drily. “Besides, sooner or later someone’s going to notice if we all disappear at once so you can drink from a cup instead.”

He’s right, of course. It’s not so much the blood itself Stiles needs as the _life_ it carries, and once separated from the body it’s just connective tissue, about as rich in vital essence as a cartilage transplant. Also, Stiles is starving. “Now?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll get you seconds for after,” Kira offers helpfully, picking up Scott’s tray and heading for the lunch line to get the food he’ll need to replace his blood volume.

“Where should we do this?” Stiles asks.

“The bathroom?”

Danny covers a laugh with a couch. “You two are going to go _neck_ in the boy’s room?”

Stiles grimaces. “Library?”

“Let’s,” Scott agrees before the pack can chime in with more “helpful” suggestions.

Beacon Hills may be a hotbed of supernatural activity and all, but not even the Dark Mystic Forces can compel high school students into the English Lit section of a library during lunch break, so finding a quiet, private spot in the stacks is easy.

“Remember, Locker room rules,” Stiles whispers. “If I don’t see your boner it doesn’t exist and any and hard things felt during grinding are cell phones until proven otherwise.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You sure about this?” Stiles asks one more time.

Scott rolls his and pulls him in by the back of the head, practically shoving his neck Stiles’s mouth. It’s one hell of a significant gesture for a werewolf, especially an Alpha, and Stiles isn’t going to snub his bestie by rejecting such an abject demonstration of trust. Also, he’s starving.

Scott is _good_ , for all that he tastes even less human than Derek. The older man had fed Stiles out of pack obligation, but the Alpha is actually doing this because he wants to, because he really cares, and that makes all the difference, which probably shouldn’t be that surprising. _Sacrificium_ , Ms. Blake’s voice says with a laugh (Stiles is only mostly sure these little sound bites he gets from time to time of the people who were sacrificed to his resurrection are imaginary). He tries to pull back after less than a minute but Scott holds him in place.

“Dude, I’m an Alpha,” he says breathily. “Take what you need. I’ll heal.

Stiles gives in reluctantly, lets himself fall deeper into the feeding than he ever has before. When the hips moving against his falter in their sinuous roll with a flutter of jerky spasms, the blood rushing over his tongue suddenly sings with energy and sweetness. It so delicious it almost overpowers the sudden rush of mortification over making his brother come in his pants. He has to more or less hold the guy up while he soothes the bite mark with his tongue until it heals, catching every last drop of the pleasure-laced blood. “You okay dude?”

Scott’s red eyes flutter and a dopey grin spreads over his face. “Fuck yeah,” he slurs. “ _Never_ go on a diet, dude.”

Stiles’s embarrassment makes way for jealously tinged with irritation. Not even Jordan left him feeling this full and satisfied, at least in terms of his hunger, but watching Scott go all gooey with afterglow while he still has a raging hard on is a little annoying. He slides a hand up under the Alpha’s shirt, rolls his eyes at the way the guy arches into the touch, and turns on the deep freeze, searing a handprint in frostbite over his chest.

Scott yelps and flails, eyes clearing of the haze of feeding pleasure. “Oh wow. No wonder you were worried about things getting weird. That was _intense_.”

“Too weird?”

“I think Jackson-as-Lizard kind of set the bar forever. Super orgasms are way better than paralytic venom.”

“Well I guess I can’t argue with that,” Stiles drawls. “But if you’re okay with doing this once in a while we should probably not do it actually _at_ school.” He doesn’t point out the boner still throbbing away in his jeans, although he’s pretty sure locker room rules end with ejaculation.

“Good idea,” Scott agrees. “Um…I guess I should change my pants, huh?”

They swing by the locker room, not that it helps all that much. Danny leers. Malia chokes on a french fry laughing. Liam looks like he might cry. Lydia mutters something about owing Jackson twenty bucks. Stiles actually has enough fresh blood in his system to blush, which he finds incredibly reassuring some inane reason. Scott ignores all of them and devours enough food for four people in spite of having already eaten a double sized meal.

 

***

 

Biology directly after lunch isn’t the best idea to begin with, but today there’s an extra complication. It turns out Stiles _can_ sleep if he’s really _really_ full; well, drowse, anyway. Unfortunately running at full charge while he’s not entirely awake makes the unicellular organism lab a little more interesting than the teacher had accounted for in her lesson plan.

“T-This issss a p-perfect oppportunit-ty t-to sssee how unicellular m-motility is affffected by c-c-cold,” Mrs. Carson chatters. “K-Keep-p examining-g your ssspecimens while I sp-speak to m-maintenance.”

“Stiles snap out of it,” Scott hisses under his breath too low for a human to hear.

Stiles jerks his head up out of the crook of his elbow and blinks at around at his shivering classmates. It’s not _that_ cold, maybe in the low 60’s, but with all their yummy yummy blood rushing to their stomachs to digest their recent meal it probably feels much worse than it is. The same can’t be said for the specimen of motile algae he’s supposed to making diagrams and notations on. Unless it is in fact the rare and mysterious _Antarctic_ Volvox, it’s probably not faring well with the jar frozen into a solid piece of murky green-tinged ice. “Sorry, it’s just…rolling out of me,” he murmurs back trying to shake himself out of his food coma before he puts his fifth period into a hypothermic one.

“So? Make it go somewhere other than here,” Scott insists, likely more for fear of discovery than actual discomfort.

Stiles considers that for a moment. Why _not_ try and control it more precisely than just tanking the ambient temperature or making his hands super cold? There’s only a few minutes left of class anyway, in case something goes weird. He just needs somewhere to _put_ the frigid power leaking out of him. _Leaking_. He focuses his hearing on the sound of water running through the pipes in the building around him. Moving fluid is great for exchanging heat, and since the plumbing brings in a basically unlimited amount of it, the transfer can go fairly quickly. That damn Einstein quote comes to mind as he pictures the cold being drawn into and carried away by the outbound pipes. The air in the room doesn’t get any warmer per se, but the temperature stops falling at least. His quiet self-congratulating is cut off by two distant clusters of surprised shrieking, one male, one female, as the near-frozen water finds its way into the gym, specifically the showers. _Lydia_ has fifth period gym.

Stiles is a dead man.

He yanks the chill back from the locker in a panic, overdoes it, and freezes the pipes solid. Blistering hot water direct from the building’s massive heater hits the plugs made by the ice with predictable results.

Oh well; he didn’t particularly want to go to History anyway.

 

***

 

Since they have the afternoon off the pack goes home with Stiles so they can meet his new little brother.

“Jareth!” he calls. “I’m home!” The griffin cub comes careening clumsily down the stairs, the claws and talons on his oversized paws scratching up the wood and where they don’t catch in the carpet. He leaps at Stiles with a joyful caw/growl, stubby wings flapping gamely but still too underdeveloped to provide any real lift. “Did you have a good day? Eat any interlopers?”

Jareth makes a series of half cat half bird sounds as he tells him about what’s been going on in the Stilinski home.

“Good work, Jar. I’ll get you a tasty rat for later,” Stiles promises, enduring the excited licking it gets him with a minimum of giggling. “What?” he asks when sees the way the pack is staring at him.

“You can understand it?” Liam asks staring at Jareth like the griffin might bite him

“ _Him_ ,” Stiles corrects, considering giving that particular order. “And yeah, pretty much. I can talk to Derek when he’s all wolfy too, so it’s like a magical beast thing?” Uncertain tones help cover deceptions.

“That’s pretty cool,” Scott allows.

“Can I pet him?” Mason asks hesitantly, ignoring Liam’s warning growl.

Jareth gives the young Beta the side eye and sticks out his shiny black tongue at him.

“Yeah you can,” Stiles replies. “Just think of Buckbeak the hippogriff.”

Mason carefully reaches out and rubs his fingers behind one of Jareth’s ears, beaming at the happy cooing sound it gets him. “You are a very cute, very smart little guy.”

Jareth hides his face under an arm bashfully.

“How intelligent is he?” Lydia asks curiously.

“Not as smart as you, but close,” Stiles answers honestly. “Griffins like to guard hordes of valuables so I stacked a bunch of the rarer magic books from Derek’s shop in my room for him, but I think he might actually be reading them when I’m not around.”

Jareth rolls his eyes and flexes his talons.

“Did…did he just complain about not being able to turn the pages?” Danny asks looking a little spooked.

“He’s…pretty?” Malia says attempting a compliment.

Jareth hops of Stiles and saunters over to her, lashing his tail mockingly as he regards her with cool green eyes.

“Yes, you’re prettier than the weird coyote girl,” Stiles assures him. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s important to foster self-esteem in children.”

“Where did he come from?” Kira wonders aloud. “Oh, um…hi?” she says uncertainly when the griffin comes over to inspect her. “I’m a thunder kitsune,” she tells him.

Jareth looks at Stiles, who translates. “He wants to know if you’re planning on blasting the house again so he can move his books somewhere less flammable.”

“That was Stiles’s fault,” she replies loftily.

“He says “Duh”. Wait, “ _Duh”_?”

“Seriously, am I the only one that thinks this is just too bizarre?” Liam demands tartly.

“Bizarrely _cute_ ,” Kira coos, as taken with the griffin cub as Mason. “Sorry, Scott, but you’ve been replaced.”

“I didn’t think you’d leave me for a younger man while we were still in high school,” the Alpha quips with a dramatic sigh.

Jareth fairly preens under all the attention.

“Wait, did you seriously name him after the Goblin King from Labyrinth?” Danny asks incredulously.

“That what it sounds like when he says his name,” Stiles replies defensively. “You try pronouncing it correctly without a beak.”

The griffin cub obligingly rattles out the roar-caw-meow that is (probably) his name.

Scott holds a hand out for him to sniff. “Do you think the Nemeton drew him here.”

Time to get his dissemble on. “Sounds likely,” Stiles agrees. “The good news is that it’s completely dead now. The bad news is that whatever wicked weirdness was already headed this way will probably still show up anyway.” To say nothing of what will be coming for all of them once Winter arrives in just over six months.

“Having a mythical guardian creature will be a good thing, then,” Lydia points out.

Stiles notes the wistful look in her eyes as she watches the rest of them play with Jareth, too poised or whatever to go all gooey in front of other people, so he looks at Jareth and says, “Go get her!”

The griffin makes a delighted sound and bounds up to Lydia, waving his scaly forearms but quite carefully not getting his claws on her designer skirt.

The banshee rolls her eyes but pets him, making through three stokes of his feathered head before her resolves cracks and she allows the griffin to hop bodily into her arms. Stiles notes this behavior grimly, more certain than before about his conclusions regarding the future.

 

***

 

“Are you okay?” Scott asks after the other have all gone home.

“Hmm?” Stiles hums pretending not to hear the weight behind the question, distracted by watching Jareth stack up the collection of tomes into a fort to play in.

“Dude, I _know_ you. Something is bothering you a lot, and it’s not blowing up the school’s plumbing.”

“Because that was _awesome_ ,” Stiles replies fondly remembering all the running and screaming and splash fights that had broken out in the halls. It’s hardly his first act of unintended chaos and destruction, but easily the most impressive (he suspects his dad will have a slightly different interpretation).

“Just please tell me you aren’t feeling guilty about the…you know,” Scott says earnestly. “Because that was awesome too, just really weird.”

Stiles taps the side of his nose with a dry expression. “Dude, I can smell how awesome you think that was, and no more neck nookie for you until your last hit wears off.”

“How shall I go on?” Scott moans sarcastically. “ _Stiles_.”

Honesty: it’s a thing. And anyway, at this point their eternal bond goes beyond just BFF’s and into There Are Bodily Fluids territory. More importantly it’s Scott, and fuck vampires and werewolves and Griffins Oh My. Stiles holds up a hand and extend his claws. “I’m freaking out because of these.”

Scott holds up his own. “Cool, we match now,” he jokes.

Stiles appreciates the effort at humor but it falls a little flat. “It’s about the Archetypes.”

“I’m guessing that doesn’t have anything to do with designing buildings.”

“It has to do with Power,” Stiles confirms. “Empousa called herself a High Priestess of the Triple Goddess. That whole Undead Eternal Love obsession her offspring had was because she was a servant of Hecate, the Ancient Greek Maiden Form.”

“So you think another Greek Goddess was your…sponsor or whatever?” Scott asks looking a little overwhelmed by the notion.

Stiles is right there with him. “That’s the thing, I _don’t_. The Winter Goddess part of the Greek Trinity is Demeter, and claws and fangs aren’t really her style.”

Scott mulls that over for a minute before his expression suddenly brightens. “Wait, I remember this. You wrote a paper about it. Something about Derek’s tattoo.”

“The Triskele,” Stiles confirms. “Archeological evidence shows it’s been in use in both the British Isles and the Mediterranean for four thousand years, even before those two areas had any contact. I found part of an old poem:

_And lo from the weeping stone there sprang the Cailleach,_

_Riding on the back of a great wolf,_

_Wielding Death in one hand and new life in the other,_

_And Winter followed in her train._

 

“Pretty?” Scott offers.

Stiles snorts derisively. “Yeah, so are shooting stars. Right up until they impact the Yucatan, create the Gulf of Mexico, and wipe out the dinosaurs.”

“We’ll be okay,” Scott asserts confidently. “We have the Great Wolf on our side.”

“I’m not sure claws and teeth will be much good against the _turning of the seasons_ ,” Stiles counters.

“So we’ll build snowmen.”

Stiles stares at him for a long moment before heaving a sigh of disbelief that turns into broken laughter. “Sounds like a plan.”

Jareth jumps up on his lap and nuzzles under chin until he can’t help but smile and scratch the faerie beast behind the ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> Derek reopens the bookstore and discovers that customer service is not his forte. His black mood is in no way related to the fact this loft is once more quiet, peaceful, and Stiles-free just the way he likes it; no matter what Jordan seems to think.


	14. Restless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first of two chapters that are Derek&Jordan-centric. There will be several of these interludes of the course of the story, so I figured I'd let you know when Stiles becomes conspicuously absent for multiple chapters.

Derek decided on Alexandria New and Used Books as the name of his new acquisition, despite Stiles’s voluble protests that it wasn’t clever enough, that the ancient city was actually in Egypt and therefore inappropriate for a Greek line of werewolves, that a famous lighthouse was too on the nose for a town called Beacon Hills. He also settled on Stiles’s first day back at school for the re-opening and skipped all the fanfare for fear of overexcited research-crazed teen vampires eating his clientele. That was five days ago. Now he’s wishing he’d thrown a giant party and rigged up something to dump chum over his future patrons and incited a frenzy of bloodlust.

“Are you sure you can’t help me?” the woman asks again, leaning on the counter in such a way that her ample surgically enhanced cleavage is pushed upward into a provocative precision.

Derek wonders if they would make popping sounds were he to poke them with his claws, or something more like a balloon slowly deflating. He isn’t running this business to turn a profit, doesn’t care about customer volume, and is surprised and annoyed at the near constant coming and going of single women ages sixteen to forty. This one is fatly refusing to take his entirely unsubtle hint, so he notes her too-young for-her outfit of halter top and miniskirt, her wrong side of thirty age, and the evidence of an unnecessary amount of Botox, then drives his point home. “Sorry, _Ma’am_ , but I don’t carry Fifty Shades of Grey. Try Amazon.” He smirks as she flees the store with tears in her eyes, which probably makes him a bad person, but whatever _._

 _I know it keeps me up at night_.

Derek silences his inner Stiles and admits defeat. He’s just not a people person. Even back in high school when he was doing his level best to transform into a stereotypical asshole jock there was always that buffer of The Secret. However much he may have enjoyed playing the part, in a very real way it wasn’t him, and he lost patience for those kinds of games a long time ago. Besides, the store is _his_. In here he’s right and any customers that disagree can fuck off. Still, it might be a good idea for him to hire someone to handle the counter. Of course, that means removing all of the heavier magical texts from the shelves (those that Stiles hasn’t appropriated for baby griffin toys that is), so he gets to work on that.

Jordan comes in ten minutes later and leans against a shelf of used fiction with an expectant look on his face.

“What?” Derek growls trying to juggle an armful of African Shamanism.

“I just had the nicest chat with the little old lady that runs the ice cream shop across the street. Ethel got very concerned when she a crying young woman run out here. For the third time today. Seems to think that young Satan worshipping hooligan across the way is up to no good.”

Derek considers pulling the shelf of medieval Catholic treatises down on himself; not even a werewolf could survive being crushed under all that theosophical rambling. “She was hitting on me.”

“You pour unfortunate soul,” Jordan deadpans. “Have you considered the possibility that retail isn’t the best fit for you? If you want I can put in a call to guy I know in private security back in Afghanistan. He’s always looking for good interrogators.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.” Derek replies just as drily. He’s come to rely on these back and forths of theirs to keep his sanity intact.

Jordan hums thoughtfully. “Maybe the problem is the _wrong_ person is hitting on you?” he suggests mildly.

All good things must come to an end it seems. “I don’t want anyone hitting on me.” Overt interest invariably has Derek picking apart each and every minute tick of voice and behavior in search of hidden motivations. The main reason he liked Braeden was that she was upfront about her occupation as a mercenary. She was safe so long as she didn’t have a prior contract on him (still, not exactly the foundation for something _stable_ or _long term_ ). Beacon Hills may be a magnet for the strange, but even here his chances of finding someone remotely compatible are practically non-existent, the odds literally lower than running into a creature half lion and half bird.

“You’re closing early today,” Jordan tells him firmly. “Before the villagers return with their torches and pitchforks.”

Derek sighs and wiggles the tower of books he’s holding. “I have work to do.”

Jordan makes one of the unnervingly fast movements and snatches the stack, sets it aside. “Nope. We have fun to do. You do know what that is, right?”

“Could you define it for me?” Derek mock-begs. “I’m sure there’s a _dic_ tionary around here. Somewhere.”

“What did you used to do to blow off steam? Notice how I use the past tense here.”

Why did he ever think surrounding himself with insightful, observant people was a good idea? “I like to hunt.” Derek’s smile is all teeth.

Jordan’s expression becomes drily amused instead of slightly nauseous as intended. “I’m guessing you mean the kind without licenses and shotguns. As fun as that sounds I was looking for something we both can do.”

They _could_ both hunt; it’s much better with a pack anyway, and Jordan’s incredible speed would be helpful for finding prey. Derek _may_ have severely depopulated the near areas of the preserve over the several days, without even the excuse of recouping his strength after getting Stilesed on. There is one other activity that his mother used to try and teach them to release the tension of the waxing moon in way that doesn’t involve blood and snarling. It might be worth it just to see the look on Jordan’s face. “There is one thing.”

 

***

 

“You’re joking.”

“Nope.” There’s no such thing as enough time and space for getting over what Derek lost, but since his life settled somewhat it’s been a little easier to remember the past without getting overburdened by it; something he’s especially grateful for at the moment, because the memories that flood his mind as he looks at the sign over the entrance to Beacon Hills Fantasy Golf are ones he wants to hold on to. “Want to make this interesting?”

“Ten bucks a hole. Double on holes in one,” Jordan suggests. “And I get the green ball.”

“Done.”

Derek pays for their first game and steers them for the harder of the two courses. “I’m going to make a feather duster out of you, Big Bird,” he says pointing with his club like a sword. Insults and razzing were part of the tradition in his family, another part of the control exercise.

“Only if you can stop yourself from fetching the ball before it goes in the hole, Fido,” Jordan retorts gamely.

“It’s _on_.”

Derek steps up to the first hole, a horseshoe curve studded with enormous colorful toadstools in varying sizes with shark-toothed little lawn gnome-looking things in floppy hats hanging out around and atop them. The irony is they’re actually a fairly accurate depiction of Fear Dearg; speculating on what the owner is/knows was another piece of the pastime.

“Aren’t these those Evil Leprechaun things?” Jordan asks poking one of the figures with his carefully as though it might come to life and bite the rubber head right off it.

“Is anyone actually buying my books or just walking off with them when I’m not looking?” Derek wonders aloud. He takes his shot while Jordan is chuckling and unable to try and throw him, gets his red ball within two feet of the hole by strategically bouncing it off one of the smaller toadstools so that it rolls along the curved edge of the green.

“Why mini golf?” Jordan asks stepping into position and staring at the obstacles thoughtfully.

“Because werewolves suck at it,” Derek replies just as the Deputy swings.

Jordan manages to divert the path of the club before it makes contact (so close), gives him an I’m Embarrassed For You That You Even Tried That look he must have learned from the Stilinskis. “Is it the fetch thing?”

Derek rolls his eyes. “It’s control.   Even humans have a hard time holding back their strength just enough to hit the ball with correct force without sacrificing follow through.”

“And this translates into blowing off steam how?”

“It takes a lot of effort, especially with your entire family trying to trip you up.”

“Speaking of…” Jordan murmurs as he hits his own ball. It takes the same path as Derek’s, actually colliding with the red ball, knocking it into a much less favorable position and ending up even close to the hole. “Yes, I am in fact good at everything.”

Derek feigns a look of surprise and disappointment, having fully expected someone who can look at an IED made out of a clock radio, kitchen solvents, and a handful of spare change and just know how it works to be able to intuit his way through the course and have the fine motor control necessary to make use of that insight. He, on the other, has played every hole in this place gods know how many times, and bounces his second shot off the deceptively springy stem of one of the toadstools and right into the hole. “Does that include losing?” he asks smugly.

Jordan makes a show of thinking it over. “I honestly wouldn’t know. You see, it’s never actually happened before so…” He taps in his ball without looking away from Derek. “Should we make it twenty a hole?”

“Why not?”

On the next hole it’s Derek that nearly flinches and botches his first swing when Jordan says, “Stiles has this theory that I keep my muscle memory between incarnations.”

“Incarnations?” he repeats, hitting his ball a steep slope into a demonic tree sprite lurking in it, one arm swinging back and forth across the opening. His aim is good, but in his surprise he gets the timing off and his ball is swept into the chute that comes out in the wrong place.

“Apparently I stopped aging a couple years back,” Jordan explains with uncomfortable grimace. “But in a millennium or so I’ll explode with enough force to leave a nice crater and start over as a newborn.”

Derek has no idea how to respond to this. One of the many reasons werewolves tend to live a bit apart from the rest of society is their lifespan. He’ll probably live to be two hundred provided nobody cuts him half first. For a True Alpha like Scott there’s really no telling, but it’s entirely possible he and Stiles will be around to give authority figures headaches on Deep Space Nine. Living a thousand years at a stretch and having to start over again and again though…that’s a whole other ball of wax. On the bright side it probably means Jordan won’t go batshit insane like Empousa did from spending millennia trying to exist in a world that her behind within a few centuries. “Stiles can raise you as his son,” Derek says finally, smirking when the warped mental image that sentence conjures causes Jordan miss his ball entirely.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear that. For the sake of my sanity,” he mutters before sinking his ball in the correct chute with a fluid stroke. “Speaking of Stiles, do you want to talk about it?””

“About what?” Derek asks absently, lining up the first of what probably two shots to get to the hole.

“About how you miss having him around twenty-four seven so much it’s making you an anti-social crazy person.”

Derek’s swing goes so wide he takes a branch clean off a shrub bordering the green. “ _What!?_ ” he chokes out. “I don’t _miss Stiles_.”

Jordan sinks his putt and gives a mildly disappointed look. “I saw you with him every day for two weeks, Derek. You smile when he’s around.”

Damn, that explains all of the shocked/confused/afraid looks he’s been getting from the pack lately. The pack he’ll actually see for the first time in days at tomorrow’s weekly meeting. It’s perfectly reasonable for that separation to put a strain on him given how new they are to the new dynamic between all of them. Reasonable, but as soon as he considers the possibility he knows that’s not the cause of foul mood. “ _Fuck_.”

“He does have a way of getting under your skin,” Jordan commiserates.

“Like ringworm,” Derek agrees. “No, _melanoma_. Stiles is like an aggressive metastatic tumor taking over my life.”

“Are werewolves so dramatic because they come from Ancient Greece, birthplace of theatrical pretension?” Jordan drawls. “You have a crush. It’s not the end of the world.”

“You’ve _met_ my ex, remember?” Derek reminds him sharply. It’s an extremely unpleasant comparison given that both Kate and Stiles have set members of his family on fire without a shred of remorse or hesitation. Apparently he has a type. “And it’s not a _crush_ , for fuck’s sake. It’s that brother thing he said.” And that’s the truth, if only because he won’t let it not be (not that he has _any_ intention of opening that particular can of worms long enough to sort out his feelings). “I haven’t been buried alive in annoying cubs for a long time. Stiles makes me remember.” Which hurts in a wonderful way he’ll gladly endure putting up with the immortally frustrating vampire to keep experiencing.

Jordan’s face becomes unreadable for a long, silent moment before the man nods. “Okay then. I believe this puts me twenty up.”

“For now,” Derek growls challengingly.

 

***

 

The eighteenth hole is a multilevel monstrosity that goes under, around, and through the body of an enormous spiky black dragon. Supposedly it _is_ possible to get a hole in one and thereby win a gift card for ten free games (as far as Derek knows no one ever has, and the employees have never been able to say honestly one way or the other) but the top tier alone has six different paths to choose from, which spilt, diverge, and recombine repeatedly on the way down.

“This is impossible,” Jordan comments.

“It’s on my bucket list,” Derek admits, smiling at the memory of the fiendishly determined boy who spent hours staring at this dragon trying to figure out how to vanquish it (he’d seriously considered using his claws to carve a more favorable path more than once).

“What’s your stance on the ethics of cheating during a rigged game?”

“Flexible.”

Jordan looks around to make sure nobody is watching and takes out his wallet, removes a small square of cloth with something circular pressed inside it.

“I think that condom is past its expiration date,” Derek quips, noting the shape.

“Stiles will be thrilled,” Jordan murmurs with an eye roll. “He said this was in case I needed to “get lucky”,” he explains pulling at a seam. A gold coin tumbles out, an ordinary Sacajawea dollar save for the vaulknut defacing the woman’s head.

Derek stares at the charm in disbelief. “Is that what I think it is?”

Jordan shrugs. “The leprechaun thing is something of a running joke between us. Stiles has been trying to figure out what he do magically now that he’s a vampire. For some reason he didn’t seem happy that he was able to do this.”

“Power comes at a price,” Derek intones. Binding good fortune to a gold coin is commonplace enough in their world, literally storybook, but it’s not _human_ magic, not even remotely, and there’s nothing to say that Stiles couldn’t successfully enact a much greater invocation of the Norns/Fates/Whatevers. But they can obsess over that later. “Well?” he prompts holding up a hand.

Jordan palms the coin and clasps their hands together.

Derek wishes. Hard. “Think it worked?”

“One way to find out.”

He manages not to jump over to the green like an overeager puppy but it’s a near thing. From the moment the ball touches the rubber starting mat he knows it’s working. Either or that or the excited tingling in his in limbs means he’s the first werewolf ever to come down with restless leg syndrome. One tap is all it takes. The ball wends its way through the course, clips the edge of the chute it exits on the second tier which causes it to veer sharply to the right and onto a ramp, the improbable angle of entry allowing it bounce off a clawed toe on the final platform and roll right into the hole. “Son of bitch.”

It takes the kid manning the booth a while to dig up the box of gift cards, yellow and faded with age. The Derek makes sure to catch the expression on his face with his camera phone when Jordan gets his own hole in one right after.

 

***

 

They grab a beer at the concession stand. For a second it’s seems odd that a kids and family attraction would serve alcohol, then half a dozen screaming second graders plow by with an exceptionally harried-looking woman chasing after them and it makes perfect sense.

“How worried should we be about this?” Jordan asks.

“Just hold still. Human children are attracted by sudden movements,” Derek jokes.

“Seriously.”

Derek sighs and takes a large swallow of his beer. “I don’t know, but Stiles is well enough for now.”

“We’ll just have to make sure he stays that way,” Jordan adds with a strange undercurrent in his tone that Derek can’t place, something almost questioning.

“He’s part of my pack. Just like you are.”

Jordan mulls this over for a moment before lifting his drink. “Okay then.”

Derek clacks their plastic cups of beer together obligingly. “Okay.” The hard part will be finding a way to get Stiles to tell him whatever it is he turned up in his books that has the kid so on edge lately. Since Jordan seems to have gotten whatever information he was after with his surreptitious interrogation/hang out, Derek figures he should see if vampires like miniature golf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> Jordan gets a new partner, and then needs to a drink; several, actually. Chaos ensues, and he makes an important decision about his future.


	15. Beer Bad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I stated writing I never would have imagined an injury as minor as a strained wrist could cause such profound mental anguish. Life is funny like that. That the damn thing still hurts is less so, but I'm over waiting for it recover fully. C'est la vie.
> 
> In other news: finally we have a little bit of smut! I'm gonna go ahead and toss out a minor warning for dub-con because of vampires and sexy supernatural shenanigans and alcohol, but nothing heavy. Also, I'm very glad that my longstanding suspicions about Derek's fairly mellow-whimsical baseline personality have been born out somewhat in season 4, because it makes his interactions with Jordan so much more fun.

Jordan wants a distraction, something to take his mind of Stiles and everything related to the vampire. It’s not like he doesn’t have time; he literally has forever, something he’s having a surprisingly hard time processing, and the age gap between them won’t seem so large in a decade or so. He doesn’t entirely buy Derek’s insistence that he only has platonic pack feelings for Stiles either, so jeopardizing what is quickly becoming the best friendship he’s had in years by rushing into something when there is an absolute lack of urgency would be idiotic. Maybe. Then again, the werewolf’s massively transparent request that the teens in the pack make Alexandria their after school study/hang out location has him seeing a lot more of the young man. Jordan just doesn’t have a convenient excuse to be around, and there’s only so long he can detain Stiles on one his visits to the station to bring his dad healthy meals without setting every chin in the place to wagging. It’s frustrating him, a sensation he abhors, particularly when there’s nothing he can to alleviate it. He likes methodical action; problem, analysis, solution. When all three of those can simultaneously be summed up as _Wait_ it bothers him on a nearly fundamental level. So yes, Jordan wants something else to focus on for a while, and if he wasn’t trying so hard not to think about Stiles at all he might have remembered the vampire’s warning about the dangers of foreshadowing in Beacon Hills, something he’s forcefully reminded of when he goes in for a Friday night shift (he offered, because he has no social life to speak of outside of a group of mostly-teens and it would look too weird for him to just tag along) and discovers the Sheriff finally managed to find him a new partner, albeit one who might as well have disaster stamped across her badge instead of a number.

“Parrish, I’d like to meet our new hire, Deputy Krater,” his boss says after calling him into the office first thing; the expression on the man’s face so neutral it looks painful. “She’s going to be your new partner.”

Jordan tries not stare, gape, or simply demand if he’s being punk’d, because the woman in front of him hardly seems real. A riot of glossy chestnut hair fall in loose ringlets past her shoulders. Her eyes are a striking grey, skin tanned and glowing with health, heart-stopping facial features expertly accentuated with a professionally inappropriate bold makeup palette. Somehow she’s managed to alter her uniform, which isn’t normally all that flattering on the female form, into something that looks more like a costume intended for cop fetish play, and it puts every graceful curve on display without quite edging into impropriety, something that would be all too easy given the obvious tension in the fabric of her shirt as struggles to contour itself to her magnificent bust. Jordan doesn’t, has never, liked girls and still gulps when he finishes his onceover.  “Nice to meet you,” he says offering her his hand to shake.

She accepts it in a surprisingly strong grip with a bubbly contralto declaration of, “Likewise.”

The Sheriff clears his throat loudly. “I’m putting you two on standby tonight so you can get to know each other. Parrish, why don’t you show her where everything is and help her get settled in.”

“Yes Sir,” Jordan replies with an infinitesimal nod, reading the hidden desperate query of _“Please tell me I’m right about your sexual orientation,”_ on the man’s face. It’s not a conversation they’ve ever had any reason to have, but the way every other male deputy has found a reason to loiter just close enough to remain in ideal range for surreptitious leering makes it somewhat pressing. “Shall we?”

Krater actually claps her hands together out of sheer excitement (really, what the hell?). “Fun fun fun.”

Jordan turns and leads her out of the office, hopes she doesn’t see the look of horrified confusion plastered all over his face. For a moment he’d been sure she was a stripper hired for some special occasion he wasn’t aware of. He might actually prefer that to the disturbingly uncomfortable impression that his new partner is actually a Tri Delt that got very very lost on the way to her sorority Halloween mixer. Jordan shows her around the station with all due politeness, however, much as it pains him. Krater could be overcompensating for being an exceedingly beautiful young woman in an archetypally male profession. The airhead bit might be a carefully calculated front to conceal a razor intellect by playing off peoples’ expectations. Or she might be some variety of ravening monster that needs dealing with. Jordan really hopes it’s the latter. “What made you pick Beacon Hills?” he asks once they’ve finished the tour and returned to his (not _their_ , not yet) desk.

“Are you kidding? This town is where the action is _at_ ,” she gushes.

Jordan silently adds up his vacation days and wonders if there’s enough for Krater to get herself killed and/or fired before he has to come back. “Did anyone mention the mortality rate around here?”

“I can take care of myself,” she breezes.

It really never is safe to say such things in Beacon Hills.

“Parrish, Krater, get in here!” the Sheriff calls, a hint of weary resignation underlying his clipped business-like tone.

“Sir?” Jordan asks echoing the sentiment.

Krater is hopping up and down in such a way as to put every remotely heterosexual male in the station in danger of passing out from the southward rush of blood. “Is it a robbery? An assault? A riot?”

“A noise complaint,” the Sheriff replies pointedly. “A company barbecue at the scrap yard is getting a little loud.”

“On it,” Jordan nods. The call sounds benign enough, but all the same he’s glad he can’t die.

 

***

 

After vampires, griffins, and werewolves oh my, Jordan would have thought little could surprise him in terms of Beacon Hills’s uncommon diversity. And yet, of all the unnatural and disturbing things he never predicted he would find in a small Northern California town, discovering that it hosts a portal to the Redneck Dimension occupies a very special sphere of _what the fuck?_ The large gravel area around the scrap yard’s offices has been turned into a scene from True Blood, complete with a perplexing absence of sleeves that actually looks far more comfortable than a poly blend Deputy’s uniform in the unseasonably hot and muggy afternoon air. Several dozen men between the ages of twenty and fifty are milling around drinking, laughing, and getting into into playful scuffles that would qualify as violent outbursts in people more sober.

“Well this is…colorful,” Krater observes gleefully. And _loudly_ , has to be to break through the Garth Brooks polluting the air.

Had she a less grating voice Jordan would think she’s a siren looking forward to entrancing a crowd of easy prey, and from the abundance of empty PBRs scattered around and fresh shiners darkening eyes, this crowd already has their inhibitions lowered and collective testosterone in a knot. He looks around for someone in charge, settles on the largest, most simian and camo-clad as his best bet. “Excuse me, Sir,” he greets formally, acutely aware of the overtly hostile glares weighing him down as he approaches cautiously. “I’m with the Beacon County Sheriff’s Department. We’ve received some complaints about the noise.”

It takes a moment for the Alpha Redneck to open his mouth to reply, either because he has a hard time forcing his teeth apart while sneering that hard or due to the time delay while the second brain at the base of his spine catches up with its marginally more evolved counterpart ensconced behind a sloping Cro-Magnon brow.

All hell breaks loose before he can grunt out whatever stunning witticism he’s come up with.

“You need to back up, Gentlemen,” Krater growls in a throaty purr. Jordan’s head whips around; he recognizes that tone, spends way too much time around werewolves not to recognize what it sounds like when a person well accustomed to violence is expecting to enjoy some imminently. The men encircling his new partner are either poseurs or too drunk to pick up on it, and a particularly greasy specimen tries to cop a feel. Krater has him facedown in the gravel with his arm twisted up behind his back at an excruciating angle before the others can blink. “You have the right to remain silent.”

“Krater!” Jordan warns as the mood around them turns dark with frightening speed, the atmosphere roiling with potential violence. He reaches for his radio to call for backup, but something hits him in the back of the head before his fingers can close around it.

He drops forward, rolling into the largest open space he can remember seeing before his vision exploded in stars, comes up into a crouch ready to defend himself, which proves unnecessary. No one is even looking at him anymore, too busy laying into whoever is closest. It’s pandemonium, but everyone seems to be enjoying themselves at least, including his partner who clearly has seen too many episodes of Hawaii Five-O and thinks that the Steve McGarrett approach to making an arrest will get her a commendation instead of _fired_. Jordan darts between the brawling rednecks and grabs her, hauls her back to the cruiser.

“I was just about to make my first collar!” she protests.

Jordan elects to ignore her in favor of getting on the radio before things progress from burgeoning riot to meat grinder. “This Parrish. I have a riot at the scrap yard and need backup. All of it.”

“Uh…10-4, Deputy,” the dispatcher replies.

A half a dozen different voices start squawking over the radio as every available unit scrambles to coordinate. Then Jordan’s cell begins to ring and he wonders if it’s actually possible for him to knock himself out. “Sir?” he answers, not needing to check the caller ID.

“Parrish what the hell is going on?” the Sheriff barks.

“Things have gotten…noisier,” Jordan winces. “What do we have for riot suppression?”

Stilinski sighs over the line. “Some tear gas, a bullhorn and strong language. Is there anything _you_ can do?”

Jordan side-eyes Krater. He could probably take care of the situation by himself but not without causing a lot of injuries, and definitely not without putting on one hell of a show for his normal-until-proven-otherwise partner. “Nothing feasible,” he hedges. His call waiting beeps.   It’s Stiles. “Hang on.” He switches over to the other line. “Speak.”

“Do you see a fire hydrant or a water main nearby?”

This is going to be…interesting. He takes a quick look over the top of the cruiser, spies a roll of heavy hose next to a large water tank just inside the large sliding door of the main building, a fire suppression system. “South wall, just inside.”

“Two minutes. Make sure your partner is looking at the distraction.”

“Who was that?” Krater asks ducking to avoid a flying lawn chair.

“Wrong number,” Jordan lies hoping they have two minutes; the press of struggling bodies practically on top of them. He keeps count in his head. At one hundred and ten he hears sirens in the distance. Twelve after that the bullhorn the Sheriff mentioned comes into play, magnifying the eerie hunting howl of a wolf into wailing thunderstorm of sound. Jordan doesn’t have to do much to distract his partner, who shouts something in foreign language and whirls in the direction the sound is coming from, crouching down in instinctive terror. His ears pop painfully as the air pressure plummets in the wake of a sudden blast of cold, fog bank blossoms into being from nowhere, the moisture-laden air no longer able to contain the oppressive humidity, and the sounds of fighting cut off, replaced by startled yelping as a jet of icy water lances into the mob. A stray blast of it catches Krater, knocks him back into Jordan and they both go sprawling in a tangle of limbs with him on top.

“I love a man who knows how to take charge,” Krater snarls, pupils blown wide with lust, flips them so she’s straddling him, and attacks his lips with hers. She is one hell of a goof kisser, so much so it takes Jordan a moment to remember she is, in fact, a _she_ and his _partner_.

He slithers out from under her in a flash and puts more distance between them than he means to in his haste hoping the eddies of mist obscure his supernatural speed sufficiently to avoid awkward questions. “Krater…”

“Nyssa, please,” she purrs. “Where did you go?”

“I’m right over here he replies,” he mutters, privately thinking that where he’ll be _going_ is lots and lots of therapy. Because that kiss was damn confusing.

Suspiciously so.

 

***

 

“Get in,” Jordan orders throwing open the passenger door of his civilian car.

Derek gives him an unimpressed look and finishes locking up the bookstore before getting in. “Rough day?” he quips.

 _Rough_ doesn’t quite cover it. The station doesn’t have the kind of personnel or simple square footage to deal with several dozen drunk, confused, sopping wet brawlers, and it took hours to get them all processed, their injuries treated, and the resulting muddy mess mopped up. Ultimately no major charges will even be filed, which makes the entire eight hour headache as pointless as it was frustrating. “We’re going out.”

“Oh?”

“I need to blow off some steam this time, and putt putt isn’t going to cut it.”

“I’m guessing we’re not going hunting,” Derek sighs resignedly.

Jordan shrugs. “Depends on what you mean,” he muses putting the car in gear.

The werewolf is less than thrilled when they arrive at their destination, scowl ferociously at every man that ogles him when they walk into Jungle, which hilariously only makes him more interesting. “I hate you.”

“I can call Stiles,” Jordan offers. “Maybe he can conjure up a lizard monster for you to dance with.” He strips off his shirt and stares expectantly until Derek growls, rolls his eyes, and does the same. “You started shaving your chest again,” he observes, fairly certain the reason behind doing so is a certain uncomfortable age gap. Apparently the one thing werewolf noses can’t detect is denial, at least when it’s they themselves reeking of it. Jordan pulls the glowing man out onto the floor intent on erasing the last twelve hours of his life with dancing and a generous dose of whiskey. He leans in o whisper in Derek’s ear. “Come on Sour Wolf. Cut loose. Enjoy the ego boost. I promise if it looks like it’s killing you I’ll use my powers to save you.” One of the many reasons Jordan appreciates the rigid structure he imposes on his day to day life and social interations is how much more engrossing it makes the infrequent occasions he permits himself to just, let, _go_.

Derek’s death glare softens into a challenging smirk. “You’re not the only one with powers.” He pulls him in close, their hips flush together and starts to dance, moving and grinding with an entirely unsurprising amount of fluid, graceful strength. Jordan laughs and slings his arms around the man’s neck, giving as good as he gets. If Derek thinks he’s going to win at awkward boner chicken he’s got another thing coming. They dance until they’re panting with exertion if not actual arousal, everything a blur of light and sweat and heat, attracting a ring of eager onlookers, not fooled by how all over each other they appear to be, but all of them end up going away disappointed.

“Feeling better?” Derek asks when they take a break for drinks at the bar.

Jordan tosses back his second double shot, thankful that his enhanced tolerance isn’t quite werewolf-strong, and says, “Much.”

“Is your new partner really that bad?”

“Well she hasn’t set me on fire yet,” he quips signaling the bartender for another round. “How about a game of Real or Myth?”

Derek sets his beer down and gives him an intent look. “Hit me.”

Jordan has a list born of equal parts caution and what he’s nearly sure is the seductive mojo she tried pushing on him earlier; dark and hot and sultry, quite unlike the bright cold thrill of pleasure he feels when Stiles feeds on him but just similar enough to set off all his alarms. “Sirens.”

“True Siren or something like a Mermaid, Selkie, Nymph, or Leanansidhe?” Derek asks.

“She didn’t shift when she got wet,” Jordan replies weakly. Maybe they should just plant a perimeter of rowan trees around the town, not that that would actually _do_ anything to any of those species from what little he knows about them. “I didn’t hear her actually _sing_ , either.”

“Probably not any of the first three, then,” Derek agrees. “And that powerful of a sidhe sorceress wouldn’t be able to handle the amount of iron a cop carries around.”

“Succubus?” That would make him feel a little less weird. “Do they ever whip crowds of men into a violent frenzy?”

Derek shrugs. “Could be. She beautiful?”

Jordan nods. “Inhumanly.”

The werewolf looks over his shoulder and swallows thickly, face going slightly slack. “Five-ten, brunette, built like an Amazon port star?”

“Wait, _those_ are real?” Jordan blurts before realizing, “She’s right behind me.”

“Hello, partner,” Krater bubbles in his ear. For some reason her first name, Nyssa, is setting off an alarm _now_ when it didn’t before.

He turns and finds himself gaping at her appearance. In uniform she was a walking temptation, but in skin tight blood red leather pants and a painted on black halter top made of a gauzy material that looks like it will turn transparent if the light hits it just right she’s a jealous brawl looking for a place to happen. It also seems she’s found time to visit the same stylist as Queen Amidala and Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy, her hair twisted into a gravity-defying up do that evokes the image of a mane trailing down from between a pair horns. “You do know what kind of club this is, right?” he asks flatly.

“Oh honey, the only labels I’m interested in are blue,” she says snagging his glass and taking a sip, wrapping her lips around the rim suggestively. “Besides,” she continues handing it back to him, “I’ve never met a man that would turn me down. Until today that is.”

Jordan pointedly rotates his drink until the mark left by her crimson lipstick is as far from his mouth as possible, tosses what’s left of it and slams the empty glass down on the bar.

Nyssa laughs delightedly as she pushes past him and sidles up to Derek, trails her fingers down the werewolf’s arm to stroke his fingers clenched around his beer. “You, on the other hand, look much more…flexible.”

It may not be a charitable thought, but as far as Jordan is concerned Derek’s goo goo eyes are the last nail in the coffin. “I’ll see you at work. Good night, Krater.”

She aims a pout at him but sashays away onto the floor without another word.

“She’s…attractive,” Derek chokes.

“Noticed, did you?” Jordan snarks.

“No, I mean I feel a _pull_ towards her,” the werewolf clarifies. “It’s weird. Do you smell smoke?”

Jordan looks at the bar where his fingers are no longer just gripping the edge, but actually burning into it, the sensation of heat pooling in his gut he thought was from alcohol and discomfort continuing to build. He spins around to find Nyssa smirking at him from within a knot of gyrating bodies whose owners have completely forgotten whoever they were dancing with before in favor of writhing around her in eerie synchronization as though entranced into some kind of hive mind state.

He whirls back around and slaps the bottle out of Derek’s hand too late, the man has already drained it. “The reason you feel a pull towards her is that the God that created her kind is the son of the one that created yours.” The bottom drops the rest of the way out of his stomach when the sounds of the club suddenly become muted. Reluctantly he turns around to find every other person in the room standing stock still and staring at him with eager, dark-eyed expressions of bloodthirsty anticipation. “You’re a maenad.”

“Clever little birdie,” Nyssa croons. “I haven’t seen a phoenix in millennia. You will be a perfect sacrifice for The Lord of Rebirth.”

Jordan makes a mnetla note to look into time travel, overcome with a burning desire to hunt down the Gods of Olympus and _shoot_ them. _Repeatedly_. “Derek, we need to get out of here,” he says urgently.” But when he looks over his shoulder he realizes the werewolf is not going to be much help, not to _him_ anyway. He’s seen an Alpha shift before, but the burning wine-colored light that has replaced the Derek’s normal blue makes this exposure significantly more terrifying, not least because the Beta _shouldn’t be able to do that_. To make matters worse, little flickers of phoenix fire have begun to dance at Jordan’s fingertips.

Nyssa smiles hugely revealing a mouthful of daintily pointed teeth. “Yes, your pyre shall carry the souls of these offerings to my Lord!”

Jordan shuts his facial expression down hard before the maenad can read the victory there, because he already knows exactly how to deal with her. Like for like, just like Empousa. He affects a nervous gulp. “How about a last drink? Maybe some of that Johnny Walker Blue?”

“Of course,” Nyssa agrees, directing the bartender to hand him the bottle with a snap of her fingers.

He uncaps it and takes a swig, leans back against the bar inching his free hand into the right position. “Did you know,” he asks conversationally, “That werewolves have extremely sensitive noses?” Derek will just have to forgive him for this.   He uses every ounce of speed he can muster as he grabs the barstool and slams the seat into the nerve rich tip of the werewolf’s snout, reverses direction and hurls it horizontally into the men between himself and Nyssa to clear a path. The maenad is doubtless much stronger and faster than a normal human, but physical prowess is not where her power lies and there can’t be more than a handful of beings on earth that could dodge his rush in time. Jordan leaps at her bringing down the bottle of top shelf whiskey right between her horns with all his strength bolstered by the incredible kinetic energy provided by his velocity. The impact itself merely staggers her, tough as she is, but the supernatural inferno that envelops her body as Jordan grabs her alcohol-soaked head between his hands is another matter entirely. She catches fire with unnatural speed, the flames blazing reddish violet as she screams. The men in her thrall fall to their knees gripping the sides’ of their heads, and in Derek’s case reverting to human form. There’s a rush of imploding air, a beat of silence when the fire winks out, and then Nyssa explodes, coating everything in sight with steaming wine-colored goo.

Jordan hurries over to Derek and slaps him on the cheek a couple of times to bring him around so he can find some pants or at least get out of there. “Hey, you okay?”

Derek groans and gives him a drunken shove. “You had to blow off some steam, huh?”

“Not done yet,” Jordan mutters looking at the smoke still curling up from his fingernails.

 

***

 

He feels bad about leaving such a very hard to explain mess for his boss and coworkers to clean up without him, but whatever it was Nyssa did to him has seriously screwed him up. Even with all the windows open his attempt to cool off with a polar bear shower still flooded his apartment with so much steam that he’ll probably have mold damage in the drywall. When Stiles finally shows up in response to his urgent texting he wastes no time in pulling him inside.

“What the hell happened? I mean, why do people even go to that club anymore?” Stiles wonders with a rueful shake of his head. “Um, dude, why aren’t you _dressed_?”

Because he won’t care if his running shorts are immolated or stained with bodily fluids. “Need you,” he says pulling him close, fire blazing away under his skin out of control.

Stiles jerks back in surprise. “Holy shit! You’re burning up.”

“Think you can take the edge off?” Jordan’s attempt at a seductive tone may ne second rate in hi slightly addled frame of mind but the erection tenting out the front of his shorts speaks for itself. He’s been waffling over this for some time now, but has seen more than enough in his life, all twenty-four years of it this time around, to know that immortality is a poor excuse for waiting to live. Monsters, magic, maenads, moody repressed werewolf competitors; it will always be _something_ , and right now he just _needs_.

“Are you sure about this?” Stiles asks, obviously trying very hard not to look down. “You look kind of…dub-conned right about now. Good news, though. I figured out after that whole Scott whoopsie daisy that my fingers of frost are pretty good at keeping the lines unblurred,” he says, wisps of steam curling off said digits as he wiggles them through the air.

Jordan will take that bet. Gladly. Besides, he has _plans_ for those fingers, plans which sadly will have to wait until after a candid conversation. His shorts tear free from his body with ease and curl of smoke. Before Stiles can recover from his gaping he grabs him by the back of the neck with one hand to pull him into a literally searing kiss, and uses the other to guide one of the younger man’s down to wrap around his length. He breaks it off far too soon so he can whisper, “Do your worst.”

Stiles all but throws him into the wall with a feral snarl, eyes burning ice blue, fangs and claws out and gleaming. He shreds his own clothes with economical motions and presses their bodies together, cold and hot burning into each other. Jordan hoists himself up so he can wrap his legs around the vampire’s waists, reveling in feel oh the iron grip on his thighs pulling up and closer. He rolls his hips upward grinding his cock over the hard ridges of muscle on Stiles stomach and bares his throat, shouting when icicle teeth pierce the side of his neck. This time neither of them hold anything back. Fire and ice roll out from their writhing bodies, clashing and consuming one another, charging the air with power; life and death meeting, churning, and becoming something more instead of cancelling each other out. Scorch marks in the shape of fingers and patches of frostbite bloom across pale skin and vanish just as quickly. Jordan nearly blacks out when comes, uncertain if the rumbling thunder is coming through the open windows or just the blood rushing in his ears. When the stars finally clear from his vision he drops off Stiles’s hips and spins him around, sinks down to his knees. The vampire’s head drops back against the wall, claws digging into the surface. Jordan takes him into his mouth, swallowing the entire length of him one go and humming with satisfaction at the high pitched whine this gets him. He begins to move in earnest, sucking as hard as he can, bobbing his head up and down and rolling Stiles’s balls in one hand. He glides the other up slowly, a single finger ghosting over the vampire’s entrance and pressing down as he deep throats him one last time. The sound Stiles makes when his orgasm rips through him is a roaring version of that hissing noise he sometimes makes, the thundering susurrus of an avalanche obliterating a mountainside. Jordan rises unsteadily to his feet, helps the younger man over to the couch and half collapses on top of him. “Thank you.”

“Hmm,” Stiles groans lustily. “What are friends for?”

It’s not exactly what Jordan was hoping to hear, but they have time, forever, really. He places a kiss at the corner of the younger man’s mouth. “That was hot.”

“And cold,” Stiles adds with a smirk.

Jordan rolls his eyes, tries to anyway, it’s comes off as more of a flutter. “I think I’m going to pass out now.”

“And here I had you figured for a post-coital cuddler.”

Jordan is out like a light mid chuckle. Outside a thunderstorm breaks in the skies over Beacon Hills, the soothing rush of wind and rain lulling him into a deep and sated sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> Since Derek appears to finally be over being a failwolf the pack has a bonfire to say farewell the final remnants of the old Hale House. Some very welcome unexpected guests decide to make an appearance bearing some dire warnings, and one extremely unwelcome party crasher forces Stiles to draw on his strange wintry powers to their fullest extent.


	16. Reptile Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're coming up on the home stretch of this part of the story. I should be done with it sometime around the end of next week at point I will finally make some time to read and respond to all of the comments so far. In the meantime, have some supernatural insanity.

“What’s wrong?” Derek asks sharply.

Stiles releases the werewolf’s wrist from his mouth and tries, fails, to look confused. “Who me? I’m cool, arctic even.” _Smooth_. “Why, uh…why do you ask?” If he does wind up in law enforcement undercover work is definitely out.

“Normally you go after my wrist like a great white on a bay seal; today it’s just a nibble,” Derek explains.

“Quit with your Interrogation Brows. I’m just not hungry,” Stiles says flippantly. It’s true enough; he just doesn’t want to tell him why, and while he doesn’t regret the feeding/mind blowing hookup with Jordan, the aftermath is a little…awkward. Wanting to jump the guy isn’t exactly new, but the desire to shove his tongue down the Deputy’s throat instead of sinking his teeth into his neck is a bit of a change. Stiles is so over the life-destroying crush phase of his life, which is a problem because he really likes Jordan, and if he lets that develop into _liking_ him…well, mooning over the older, insanely hot, way out of his league man, who works with his _dad_ no less (the old adage about ending up with people that remind you of your parents adds a fun extra twist), is just asking for centuries of unrelenting mortification. If he really thought Jordan was interested in him beyond supernaturally satisfying mutual orgasms it would be different. Not that he has any intention of complaining or turning him down if the offer for another round (or two, or three, a day); there’s just no way he’s going to be the one doing the initiating.

Thankfully Derek lets it go with just a sarcastic eye-roll (number three thousand and seventy-four by Stiles’s estimation) and hands him a shovel. “The pit needs to be two feet deep in the center and eight feet across.”

“What!? Why do I have to do the digging?” Stiles whines. “Can’t you just shift and use your paws? Maybe you can bury a bone while you’re at it.”

“You can use yours if you want,” Derek suggests mildly. “Any idea why _have_ claws?”

Stiles gives him an eye roll of his own. “No clue, Subtle Wolf.” His heart may not betray the lie, but the werewolf looks massively unconvinced nonetheless.

“Fine. I’ll dig. You haul the wood.”

“Is that a euphemism?” Stiles snarks as he stalks past him. He regrets the joke instantly as the sense memory of Jordan’s dick grinding against him rears its ugly ( _hot_ ) head. Maybe he should revisit the Danny idea. At this point if the Beta lost control in the heat of the moment his claws wouldn’t do much more than tickle, and Stiles is more than okay with things getting a little rough it seems (trying to avoid even _looking_ at walls, _any_ walls, is getting him a lot of weird looks). Stiles focuses on moving the lumber, wrangling as much of it into his arms as he can on each trip to distract himself (work up an appetite in the hope that phoenix is on the menu) by playing the world’s largest game of pickup sticks. Each time he returns to the pile of charred and rotted boards near the exposed foundation the surreality of the sight strikes him just as hard as the first time. The Hale House was such a touchstone for the last year, a symbol for the Vendetta that started everything in the first place and a reminder of the stakes that came with this life. Stiles understands, even applauds Derek’s decision to finally let it go and rebuild. It’s suspiciously like personal growth, which is probably breaking a seal on the Apocalypse. If he were the optimistic sort it might be a sign that there’s hope for humanity (and werwolfity) as a whole, but that would be risking two Omens of Doom in one go. When he drops off the last load at the fire pit he notices something odd. “Are those ashes? And gravel?”

Derek nods absently and opens a fresh bag of latter to line the bottom. “My family used to have a bonfire every year on Beltane.”

“This looks a lot older than that,” Stiles points out looking at the pile of vegetation they had to clear before digging.

“We stopped when I was twelve after Cora and I got third degree burns.”

“I’m guessing there’s a story there.”

Derek snorts ruefully. “Peter convinced us if we looked close enough we’d see the salamanders in the fire.”

Stiles sometimes has trouble believing Talia Hale was the Alpha everyone says she was given that she never sewed her sociopathic little brother in a sack and tossed him the river. “You know, I have this awesome bridge if you’re in the market. I’ll even give you a discount because of the trolls.”

Derek’s phone rings before he can come up with a witty rejoinder, probably something like hitting over the head with the shovel. “Hello.”

“You might want to try some inflection so people don’t think you’re a customer service robot when you answer the phone,” Stiles suggests, easing away from any handy blunt objects.

 _“You guys need to come to the clinic ASAP,”_ Scott says over the line. _“You’re not going to believe this.”_

 

***

 

The entire pack is already there when they arrive, including Jordan and Stiles’s dad. There are also three other people, none of whom he ever thought he’d see again. In the case of the two werewolves that made sense, neither Isaac nor Jackson have any reason to set foot in Beacon Hills again, but Stiles kicks himself for ever dreaming he’d seen the last of Chris. The man is an Argent after all, and the Hunter family always returns eventually even if they have to come back from the dead to so.

“Wow, we must _really_ be fucked this time,” Stiles says brightly into the tense atmosphere.

“Good to know some things never change,” Jackson drawls with a judgmental glare which he turns on Scott when the Alpha starts snickering.

Stiles shifts, crosses his arms to put his claws in clear view and gives the ex-lizard a grin that shows off every single one of his fangs. “I guess the British educational system is way overrated if they haven’t taught you how to not be wrong all the time. Welcome back, Doc Connors.” He lets a little power slide into the air to drop the temperature. “Hope you weren’t expecting a warm reception.”

“That was disappointing even for you,” Liam comments.

Malia hums in disagreement. “I don’t know. The teeth are pretty impressive the first time you see them.”

“I think the bigger surprise is how your balls try run away and hide when he does that,” Mason adds.

Chris starts making choking noises, face turning a lovely shade of green. “When? _What_?”

“I thought you were over the bigoted douchebaggery,” Stiles pouts nodding at Isaac, who merely looks mildly surprised. “Stiles Stilinski, Master Vampire at your service. And don’t worry Mr. Argent, I prefer veal.”

“Please excuse my son,” his dad interjects. “He’s still upset over not being able to eat curly fries anymore. I offered to take over for him but…”

“Maybe we could get to the point?” Derek suggests acidly, looking for all the world like Chris’s entirely unsurprising reactions to Stiles getting vamped has confirmed his very worst fears (what the actual hell?).

Since Argent is still mid apoplexy it’s Isaac that answers. “Chris and the Calaverras tracked Kate back over the border a week ago. Apparently a lot of Hunters have talking about Beacon Hills, about everything that’s been going on here lately, and Chris think Kate’s planning on getting back in by…”

“Taking us out?” Stiles finishes. “Okay, show hands. Will anybody be upset if I eat her?” The indigestion would be so totally worth it.

His dad sighs and raises his hand but the gesture looks halfhearted at best. No one else voices an objection except, surprise, Chris.

“If it was that simple I would have just called and let you,” the Hunter says quietly. “But the reason it took us a week to get here is that we were putting out fires the whole way. With the power vacuum created by the defeat of the Alpha Pack and the Deadpool a lot of things have decided that Beacon Hills is open for the taking. Things are beginning to migrate here. Some of them I haven’t ever heard of on this side of the Atlantic.”

“Like griffins,” Danny says with a shudder.

Stiles still can’t decide whether to be amused or annoyed with the Beta’s ornithophobia, though to be fair Jareth has already nearly doubled in size making his eagle’s forequarters far larger than any natural bird, at least in terms of beak and talon size. “Hey, Jar’s part of the pack too. Anyway he only attacked those women because they were all under five-six and he was a _baby_ all alone and scared.” He sure isn’t anymore, though, and Derek has graciously (reluctantly, grudgingly, petulantly) agreed to teach him to hunt before the cub eats his dad out of house and home.

“Wait, I thought the Nemeton was dead?” Scott asks in confusion.

“It is quiet for the time being,” Deaton hedges. “But the supernatural world is much smaller than that of humans. Once word spreads past a certain point…”

“I’m never getting reelected,” the Sheriff mutters.

“Don’t count yourself out yet,” Chris says darkly. “I’m afraid the Hunting families have already decided to take action.”

“Another visit from the Mexican Fratellis?” Stiles groans. “ _Super_.”

Argent shakes his head. “ _They_ are waiting for orders outside of town. What you need to worry about is the judgment of the Venatrix.”

Derek snarls something under his breath that sounds like it would be very offensive if you speak angry canine.

“Huntress,” Lydia translates. “One of the family matriarchs?”

“ _The_ matriarch,” Derek corrects. “The position goes to the one with the most experience. If the rumors are true the current one made her first kill during the Great Depression.”

“What’s she going to do, beat us to death with her walker?” Jackson scoffs.

“Tell that to Matt Daehler,” Stiles reminds him sharply. “Oh wait.” As someone who’s been on the receiving end of a geriatric Hunter beating he knows firsthand that things like age and terminal illness don’t mean a damn thing to them, the whackjobs. “And why are you here anyway? None of us need to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance right now.”

Jackson trades an unreadable look with Isaac. “Allison,” the murmur in unison.

“She spoke to you though my connection with you,” Derek says, nodding in understanding.

“Allison spoke to you guys? How? When?” Scott demands eyes glowing red with rush of conflicted emotion that has every supernatural nose in the place twitching in discomfort.

“It was in the White Room,” Stiles replies, wincing. “Before you ask my answer to all questions is I Don’t Know. This way above my pay grade.”

The Alpha doesn’t look remotely satisfied with this response but nods jerkily and lets Kira hug him, which is a good sign on multiple levels. “Okay.”

“She just appeared out of thin air while I was eating breakfast and told me to pull my head out of my ass and come home,” Jackson says with a small smile. Allison’s universal likeability extends beyond the grave.

“She told me my family needed me,” Isaac adds quietly.

“Perfect!” Stiles beams. “We’re having a bonfire tonight. S’mores, singalongs, the whole nine.”

“Neither of those things are happening,” Derek mutters flatly. “It’s good to see you again. Both of you.”

“I know it’s weird me suggesting cancelling a party,” Danny says tentatively, “But is this really the time?”

Right. Danny isn’t used to this kind of thing yet, has only had one halfhearted throwdown with a group of walking dead, which doesn’t quite compare to a year and a half of constant weirdness and mayhem. “All of us together like that without any cover? Kate’s batshit insane but she isn’t stupid. With so many different abilities in our pack it’d be beyond stupid to take us on our own ground,” Stiles asserts.

“He’s probably right,” his dad agrees. “We have to assume she’s been observing us for at least a few days by now and let’s face it, none of you are very subtle. She’ll know the only chance she has is to hit you in small groups separately or draw you into a carefully planned ambush.” He turns to Stiles. “My real concern is how she plans to deal with you. I’m guessing anything that could put you down long enough for her to take out the rest of the pack would involve a hell of a lot of collateral damage.”

Stiles grimaces in agreement. “I love the irony here. Before I was a liability because I was too breakable, now I’m just as big a danger by being indestructibleish.”

His dad aims a disappointed frown at him. “Derek, if you please.”

The werewolf smacks him on the back of the head hard enough to put a normal human in the hospital. “Dude!” Stiles yelps. “Just because it doesn’t hurt doesn’t make it any less _rude_.”

“You suck, Stilinski,” Jackson growls, taking out his wallet and passing Isaac a hundred euro note.

“I don’t want to know, do I?”

He has not missed Isaac’s Grinning Asshole face. “You two are still doing your weird violent flirting thing. Jackson bet me that would have stopped a second after you turned eighteen.”

Stiles can _smell_ the pain coming from the pack as they try to hold back their sadistic laughter. Forget werewolves; hyenas, that’s what they are. “You guys suck.”

“If you sucked I wouldn’t be out three hundred euros,” Jackson grumbles.

“Three?”

“I’ll take a check,” Chris says cracking a grin.

“I take it back. None of you are invited,” Stiles grumbles. “Say, dad,” he says, dismissing Argent and the two Betas by turning away from them. “How much vacation time have you got saved up?”

“I know, Iknow, twenty-four seven triple vampire/phoenix/werewolf protection detail until this is over.”

Stiles smiles brightly. “Good man, unlimited curly fries for you until it’s over.”

“Joy, we should have invasion of psychotic werewolf hunters more often.”

Derek clears his throat, loudly. “Speaking of, what are we going to do about the Venatrix?”

Chris shrugs. “Take Kate alive. And try not to eat any civilians in the meantime.”

“We definitely need s’mores,” Stiles groans when he sees Scott’s relief at the naively non-murderous suggestion.

 

***

 

There are no s’mores. There is however a few wheelbarrows full of Thai take out and dutiful son that he is, Stiles pretends not to notice while his proves from which side of the family comes the appetite. Whatever the man is whispering about with Jordan behind the shielding roar of the bonfire, Stiles can get out of the Deputy later. Well, probably not, but it will be fun to try. He can guess the kind of overly heroic shenanigans they’re cooking up anyway. The pack’s canine contingent is playing “lacrosse” on the other side of the clearing at the edge of the firelight in an attempt to scent mark each other in as manly violent a way possible. Jackson and Isaac may have come back to deliver a warning in honor of Allison’s memory, but it’s obvious from the unnecessarily long-lingering tackles that they won’t be leaving. They’re all smiling and laughing kids, even the Sour Wolf. It’s creepy.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Lydia says beside him.

“I’ll have you know my thoughts are pure gold,” Stiles replies loftily. “I’m just thinking about moving on and coming back.”

“Deep.”

Stiles shrugs, looking at her sideways while Lydia stares contemplatively into the fire.

“I wonder why Derek isn’t afraid of fire,” she murmurs.

“Werewolves grow up with violence. They’re not the kind of people to confuse a weapon for the person using it.” His dad’s a cop, the whole Guns versus People quandary is familiar as an old friend. He figures claws, fangs, and self-igniting Molotov cocktails fall in the same vein.

“Speaking of, do I need to remind you how invincible you are not?” Lydia asks. “Kate knows as much about killing supernatural creatures as anyone.”

“And Jordan took out an immortal flash rave nymph with a barstool and a bottle of whiskey. I can take a hint.”

Lydia gives him an arch look. “Since when?”

“Hey, who kissed who here?” Stiles smirks.

The banshee makes an unladylike derisive noise. “You really are that stupidly oblivious. This will be _highly_ entertaining for me.”

“Dude, I am on the ball.”

Whether that’s true or not, it’s mere luck that has him looking in the right direction to catch the glimmer of reflected firelight on the object that comes sailing out of the trees directly into the bonfire. Stiles has no idea what the Frisbee-sized black disk is supposed to do but his first instinct is that it’s going to be _hot_. He barely has time to jump in front of Lydia, brace himself, and conjure up the mental image of a fucking glacial wall of ice. The bonfire erupts into a column of swirling flame a good fifty feet high, knocking Lydia forward into Stiles’s back with the sudden massive implosion of air it draws in. The fire then contracts coalescing into the solid shape of something huge and reptilian, its shiny black hide covered with a webwork of glowing orange cracks. A salamander, that or something similar, and Stiles’s feels a hysterical certainty that is somehow all Peter’s fault. The beast pays no mind to the pack in favor of taking off into the trees with a roar at tremendous speed.

Right in the direction of town.

Stiles whirls around to check on Lydia. She seems fine aside from the shivering. “You okay?”

The ear piercing wail she lets loose in his face is answer enough.

The pack converges on them.

“What the fuck _is_ that thing?” Jackson shouts.

“Your momma, duh,” Stiles snaps. “Jordan you have to stall it.”

“How?” the Deputy blurts waving a hand at the trail of scorched earth and burning vegetation.

“Shoot it, call it names, serenade it in the language of the flaming saurids; just keep it busy until I get there.”

Jordan’s mouth opens and closes a few times before his expression hardens, eyes burning orange as he turns and follows the path of destruction at a pace that renders him little more than a blur.

Stiles faces the rest of the pack and tries to put on a brave face as theirs are wearing a mix of disbelief, denial, and abject terror. “The thing came from that way,” he says pointing in the direction Kate must have approached from before hurling the Frisbee of Doom into the bonfire. “You guys circle around the other direction so Kate caan’t pick you off with gunfire and…”

Derek steps forward, grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him like a terrier with a rat. “Are you fucking insane? That’s an elder fire elemental. You might as well just throw yourself on a Nemeton stake doused in phoenix fire. It would be fast at least.”

“Please,” Stiles scoffs (attempts to), and brushes him off. “He’s packing heat; I’m packing cold. Dude it’s synergy!”

“Stiles please,” his dad begs.

“Dad I have to. Besides it’s an elemental which means it’s not from around here. I’ve got the home field advantage and I want that home to _not be a charcoal briquette_.”

His dad subsides but his expression is _gutted_.

“Let him go,” Scott orders quietly. _Of course_ it takes something like this for the guy to finally really step into his Alpha shoes.

“No leaving us behind,” Malia says.

“Yeah, don’t be a hero Stilinski,” Jackson interjects. “This town would be boring without you making an as out of yourself in public.”

“Yeah, clearly,” Stiles snorts jerking his head at what is quickly turning into a full on forest fire. “I’ll be fine. Promise.” He starts to turn only to be pulled up short by a clawed hand digging into his arm.

“ _No_ ,” Derek snarls. “We’re a week past Beltane. You’re powers are practically at their weakest.”

It’s not surprising the werewolf has figure out the identity of The Sponsor, one of the spirals tattooed on his back represents the Cailleach after all, but the devastating fear in his eyes makes Stiles hesitate for a moment. He knew the guy was warming up to him, his awesomeness is both irresistible and inevitable, but this is level of intensity is stunning to the point of verging on moving. “I. Promise.” Stiles gently but firmly removes Derek’s hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze, faces the direction the salamander went before the looks his pack is giving him can shatter his resolve. A year ago he never would have believed such a large group of fairly amazing people could be so afraid on his behalf. Fear is something he understands all too well. After his mom died he turned the anger he had no idea how to with inward, having panic attacks instead of lashing out aside from the occasional bit of sarcasm (he’s probably about to die horribly, he can kid himself all he wants). But he is not that ten year old boy anymore. Now he can _fight_. Dante described the deepest circle of the Inferno as an icy prison so absolute it holds the Devil himself powerless.

Stiles has always enjoyed raising a little Hell.

He digs deep for the well of power inside himself. Winter isn’t evil or even dark. What it is is harsh and wild and ruthless as the wolf, and Stiles’s pack is in danger. He doesn’t try to control or channel it; he sets it loose to run free. Icy blue floods his vision. Through these eyes the fire looks like a mortal insult, and as he runs cold, cold energy washes out with every footfall, attacking, extinguishing, and growing as it defeats and consumes its opposite. He lets out a furious, exultant roar of challenge, picking up speed. When he catches up with Jordan and the salamander the sight that greets him would be hilarious in other circumstances. What else would call a man wearing nothing but soot and ashes running around the legs of an angry fire monster and whacking it with a burning branch while shouting creative imprecations.

It becomes much less funny when the salamander decides it’s had enough. The creature bears little resemblance to the ones in European folklore, all long sinuous lines with billowing feathers of solid flame pluming out from the back of its head and between its shoulder blades. In fact it’s distinctly Mesoamerican, as if he needed more proof as to who is responsible for summoning it. The long sinuous tail suddenly lashes forward with a whipcrack, catching Jordan in the stomach and hurling him into a tree with such force the phoenix immolates on impact.

It’s just the incentive Stiles needs to completely lose his shit in the right direction. He doubts he’ll fare much better in a physical contest, but the salamander _is_ an elemental and it needs a ridiculous amount of power to keep a solid form on the physical plane. All Stiles has to do is make the environment a little more inhospitable and the creature will be forced to pack it in and head home. He thrusts his hands forward (he does not shout Kamehameha bu it’s a near thing) focusing everything he has into surrounding the salamander with cold so absolute a polar bear would have to take a vacation somewhere warm to get away from it. Dizzying fractals of ice and frost enclose it in a circle. The sound the elemental makes when it tries to cross it is indescribable, completing overwhelming the explosive hiss of steam that billows out from its body only to immediately flash freeze into snow and swirl back in to reinforce the trap. It’s hands down the coolest supernatural thing Stiles has seen yet (pun intended) and he laughs through the rapidly mounting pain and exhaustion threatening to swamp him.  He gives it everything he has but the salamander is just too strong and it’s furious thrashing is going to overcome him in seconds.

Until Kira appears at his side. “I have a Stiles idea!” she shouts through the maelstrom of chaotic wind kicked up by the conflicting pressures warring for dominance in the air.

“That qualification isn’t insulting _at all_!” he hollers back.

“Hold on!” The kitsune draws her sword and sticks the blade into the upper edge of the chaotic illumination rippling out from Stiles’s hands, separating out a concentrated beam of it and deflecting it up into the roiling clouds overhead.

He’d wondered if his and Jordan’s fire and ice tango had something to do with thunderstorm that just happened to pop up out of nowhere while they were going at it. The flashes that begin to flicker madly through sky are a big brilliant yes. Kira whips the blade free and drives it point down into the ground with a samurai battle cry. A thin bolt of lightning streaks down from the clouds and slams into the salamander. The elemental lets out one last agonized cry and explodes, the detonation flattening its surroundings into a new clearing.

“You were right,” Stiles chortles wiggling out of the pile of dirt and detritus he’s half buried under. “That _was_ a Stiles idea.”

“ _Ow_ ,” Kira groans in agreement from under her own mound of debris.

“Are you guys okay?” Jordan asks staggering over o them.

“Oh look, déjà vu,” Stiles says waggling his eyebrows.

“Oh really?” Kira drawls and tries to elbow him in the ribs conspiratorially but gets caught on a branch.

Stiles tries to stand and flops back down with an exhausted grunt. “Welp, looks like I’m the one passing out this time. It’s becoming a _thing_.”

Jordan brushes a chunk of something out Stiles’s hair. “Get some rest. We’ll take it from here.”

Kate is a little too alive for Stiles to find that offer appealing, but sadly he doesn’t have any choice in the matter and snores peacefully for the first time since he was turned while Jordan and Kira lug his heavy unconscious body to meet up with the rest of the pack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on The Harsh Light of Day...
> 
> With Stiles out of play while he recuperates from battling the salamander the pack is down their heaviest hitter and Kate is still on the loose. Derek privately enlists Sheriff Stilinski's aid in tracking down the one person even the werejaguar would fear.

**Author's Note:**

> I have an odd question: at what point when you're reading a WIP do you decide that you want it to become a series? Join me in an exercise and leave a comment in the appropriate chapter if at any point you're struck by the desire for more past this story line (it's not planned out or anything, but this AU has room to keep growing).
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


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